LOST ROCKS. 13 



to understand more difficult things in the plans and methods 

 of world-making. 



If we decide to interest ourselves in the inquiry, How the 

 world was made and what it has become, we must first give 

 attention to the materials of which it is composed. It is a 

 stone dwelling; it is imperishable at least as imperishable 

 as granite foundations and massive courses of masonry can 

 render a structure. Here are, indeed, beds of gravel and 

 sand, overspreading the greater part of the country. These 

 are not firmly consolidated, and are easily moved out of place. 

 But they are like the gravel used on the roofs of some build- 

 ings a very insignificant part of the whole. Underneath 

 these loose materials we shall find the solid and enduring 

 foundations. But the study of the loose surface materials is 

 full of interest, because their presence renders the earth hab- 

 itable. What sort of a home for man or beast would this 

 planet be, if all the loose surface beds were cleared off down 

 to the rocky floor on which they rest? Did you ever hear 

 that question asked before ? We must, by all means, begin 

 with the stones, and sands, and clays, which lie upon the sur- 

 face, or near the surface, and try to ascertain what they are 

 and how they are arranged, and of what use they are to man. 

 Do you think we had better proceed? 



II. LOST ROCKS. 



BOWLDERS. 



WHO cares for a cobble-stone ? It is a kind of nuisance 

 anywhere so most people think. The farmer would be glad to 

 have every one of them carted from his fields. I have seen land 

 so thickly covered by them as to be almost impossible to cul- 

 tivate. In some regions near the coast, in New England, the 

 loose rounded stones lie so close over hundreds of acres that 

 I have traveled by simply stepping from stone to stone. 



You will notice that cobble-stones are of various sizes. In 

 fact, it is difficult to state where a cobble-stone is small enough 



