You read history in books.

But in old times when men did not exist surely no books could have been written.

How then can we find out what happened then?

We cannot merely sit down and imagine everything.

This would be very interesting for we could imagine anything we wanted to and would thus make up the most beautiful fairy tales.

But this need not be true as it would not be based on any facts that we had seen.

But although we have no books written in those far-off days, fortunately we have some things which tell us a great deal as well almost as a book would.

We have rocks and mountains and seas and stars and rivers and deserts and fossils of old animals.

These and other like things are our books for the earth’s early story.

And the real way to understand this story is not merely to read about it in other people’s books but to go to the great Book of Nature itself.

You will I hope soon begin to learn how to read this story from the rocks and mountains.

Imagine how fascinating it is!

Every little stone that you see lying in the road or on the mountain side may be a little page in nature’s book and may be able to tell you something if you only knew how to read it.

To be able to read any language, Hindi or Urdu or English, you have to learn its alphabet.

So also you must learn the alphabet of nature before you can read her story in her books of stone and rock.

Even now perhaps you know a little how to read this.

If you see a little round shiny pebble, does it not tell you something?

How did it get round and smooth and shiny without any corners or rough edges?

If you break a big rock into small bits, each bit is rough and has corners and rough edges.

It is not at all like a round smooth pebble.

How then did the pebble become so round and smooth and shiny?

It will tell you its story if you have good eyes to see and ears to hear it.

It tells you that once upon a time, it may be long ago, it was a bit of a rock, just like the bit you may break from a big rock or stone with plenty of edges and corners.

Probably it rested on some mountain side.

Then came the rain and washed it down to the little valley where it found a mountain stream which pushed it on and on till it reached a little river.

And the little river took it to the big river.

And all the while it rolled at the bottom of the river and its edges were worn away and its rough surface made smooth and shiny.

So it became the pebble that you see. Somehow the river left it behind and you found it.

If the river had carried it on, it would have become smaller and smaller till at last it became a grain of sand and joined its brothers at the seaside to make a beautiful beach where little children can play and make castles out of the sand.

If a little pebble can tell you so much, how much more could we learn from all the rocks and mountains and the many other things we see around us?