8 NATURE'S STORY OF THE YEAR 



that oozed along the clay-bank of the hill found 

 less easy courses. Here the channel deepened 

 rapidly, the area of supply as quickly widened, 

 and the lighter particles of soil having been 

 borne away, the water began to move the larger 

 stones. Each fragment within the growing power 

 of the stream was seized, torn from its bed, flung 

 this way and that, rolled over multitudes of smaller 

 nuggets under multitudes of larger ones. Soon 

 the crude characters of the fragment vanished, as, 

 amongst ourselves, the stress of a toilsome life will 

 obliterate individual qualities and tastes. But as 

 the pebble retains within its true geological nature, 

 so we retain through every change of life some 

 trace of the experiences of childhood. Some of 

 us remain in our loam for life, but the majority 

 have to become as pebbles or as grains of sand, 

 worn and chipped and ground into the common- 

 place, hurrying along the course of life's river, and 

 fortunate if unshattered by a plunge down sbme 

 unsuspected precipice. 



The rivulet, effectively draining its ever-widening 

 basin, was not the only leak of the watershed ; 

 presently it met another stream, a rival miner, 



