44 
SEA SAND. 
stepdaughter to get them all picked out in two hours time if 
she wished to go to the dance. The birds of the air came to 
help her, and long before the allotted time peas and cinders 
were disentangled. We have tried to disentangle the still 
greater confusion in a handful of sand. And if it be suggested 
that we should pick out the large or the small grains, the hard 
or the soft, the light or the heavy, the Hat or the round, the 
limestone, the iron or the flint, to all these problems we shall 
offer at least partial answers. 
The experiments described below have mostly been worked 
out by my pupils at Bootham School. They are of an ele¬ 
mentary character. At first sight some may seem simply 
silly, others trivial and useless. Advanced methods of 
chemical and microscopic analysis have been beyond our 
reach ; hut there are certain vistas of interesting inquiries 
which open out as soon as we begin to apply com monsense 
methods to the investigation of everyday things. Many of the 
experiments are still only in process, and are mentioned as 
suggestive not as conclusive. My special thanks are already 
due to Mr. Walker and Mr. Platnauer for their kind assistance, 
as well as to the publications of Prof. W 7 arrington, Prof. Karl 
Pearson, and Mr. Francis Gabon. 
The statements in the school books that sand is silica, and 
that sea sand is formed by the wearing away of sea cliffs, have 
sometimes seemed so simple and so final that we have been 
tempted to accept these conclusions and to rest in them 
without further thought. 
Our inquiries were prompted by a winter sojourn at Scarbro’, 
and have been directed mainly to the sand of the Scarbro’ 
South Bay. A glance at a handful of this shows at once that 
it consists of very various colours. Its nature then is complex 
not simple. 
A dishful of sand brought home from the shore may appear 
dry, but if a small quantity of it is heated in a test-tube and 
then poured out, some of it sticks to the side of the tube. 
Moisture has been given off from the sand, and condensing in 
the upper part of the tube has retained some of the grains. 
Apparently sand which seems dry may contain water. 
