The wonderful discovery of the tomb of King Tutankhamen by Lord Carnarvon and Mr. Howard Carter is a notable instance of this sort of thing. For years they dug, poured money into the sands of the desert, shifting mountains of sand and rock in their endeavours to discover something worth while. Lord Carnarvon himself stated that they had moved about 70,000 tons of rubble during their search. They were lucky to be rewarded in the end, for millions of tons of rock and sand have been dug up in Egypt without yielding to the diggers a single article of value. Mr. Howard Carter was hopeful that something might be found in the neighbourhood of the great discovery, and the work of excavation was started. The diggers wielded their picks week after week and shovelled the rubble into the baskets of the men who carried it away from the hole that was growing in the ground. Daily the hole grew bigger, the mound of sand and rock grew larger. Not a sign of a tomb was discovered. Work was continued in the hope that something would turn up. They were always hopeful, but the end of the day brought nothing to light and it proved so much wasted labour. The quest in the old place was thrown up, and the picks of the diggers were directed to a spot only a few yards away. There was the same monotonous, back-aching work, the same running to and fro of the natives with their little baskets of rubble. In such circumstances only a born optimist could carry on. The pessimist would throw up the task in despair at the end of two or three days. Even Mr. Howard Carter began to think that he had again drawn a blank; he began to consider whether it was time to shut down operations and have another try elsewhere. For a day or two his thoughts ran in this groove, until he decided to dig just one more day, and if nothing turned up then to stop it. Truly a momentous decision. But for it the tomb of Tutankhamen would still be undiscovered, and the world would yet be in ignorance of the marvels that it contained. Before the day’s digging was over, the shape of a step gladdened Mr. Carter’s eyes, and fully justified his selection of that particular spot for his operations. A yard or two more to the right or left, and he might have missed the tomb. It was a much nearer thing than the world imagines. The accuracy of Mr. Howard Carter in selecting his second site is rather amazing. Digging was not started there haphazard. The ground had been thoroughly gone over and studied, and the possibilities summed up before the pick was driven into the sand. It was a happy combination of expert knowledge and good luck. [Illustration: THIS PHOTOGRAPH INDICATES THE UTTER DESOLATION OF THE ARID VALLEY OF THE TOMBS OF THE KINGS, WHERE EVEN A BLADE OF GRASS CANNOT LIVE. THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMEN, GUARDED BY SOLDIERS, IS SHOWN IN THE FOREGROUND]