8 SOILS 



although surrounded by an atmosphere of mist and vapor. 

 When this rocky and molten mass of earth began to cool, 

 its crust became broken and uneven. But no soil was 

 there, only hard, fire-burned rock. Then centuries 

 passed thousands and thousands of them. The molten 

 mass had cooled. The darkness that was on the face of 

 the deep gave way to light and change. For the light 

 came from the sun and these rays the rocks absorbed. 

 They felt the refining influence, also, of the air as it 

 played over the wrinkled faces of rock and cliff. At first 

 these two agencies made but little, if any, impression. 

 So hard was the rock, what might air and sunshine do? 



GRADUALLY CHANGING FROM ROCK TO SOIL 



But busy bodies, that are at work always and ever, gradu- 

 ally gain their ends, and so these first rocks, now cold, 

 now warm but yet so hard and strong and so brutal 

 slowly gave up their determined tenacity and lost some 

 of their strength and hidden power. A little softening, 

 and they were changed, just as the refining influence 

 of good air and much sunshine refines the plant or beast 

 or man that comes under their spell and change. 



