From a scientific standpoint little things may be just as big as big things. For example, in this matter of old weather records these rain-drops and ripple stones are just as interesting as other weather records written large on mountain walls; such as those which tell that what is now the Dead Sea was once part of a much larger sea that wasn't dead at all. You may never get to read these records on the mountain walls of Palestine, for they are a long way off, but here in our own country we have a similar story told on mountain walls in the region of another dead sea--the Great Salt Lake of Utah. From Salt Lake City you can see on the mountain surrounding the desert of the Great Basin the marks of old shore lines; where the waves cut into the rock. These marks show that this Basin once held two great lakes, and the one in the eastern portion dried up into what is now Great Salt Lake. [Illustration: WEATHER RECORDS ON THE WALLS OF TIME What is now the Great Salt Lake used to be a much greater lake that wasn't salt at all. That vast flight of steps up the mountainside shows how wide it spread. As the big lake dried up, and grew smaller and smaller and saltier and saltier, its shores were bounded successively by those wave-cut cliffs. ] IV. Stories Written on the Pebbles Sometimes when a geologist picks up a pebble and looks at it a moment he can hear the roar of mountain torrents and of lowland streams in flood. If the pebble is round it shows that it has been carried far and rolled about by streams. If it has pits in it this shows that its water journeys were rough, because such pits are made by knocking against other pebbles and sharp stones in the struggle and confusion of the rushing waters. You see these little dots are a kind of shorthand, for we pebbles are stenographers too! [Illustration: THE PERCHED BOULDER IN BRONX PARK This is one of the interesting things to be seen when you visit Bronx Park in New York City. Of course, _you_ know how that old boulder got there, and how he drew those straight lines in the rock-bed beneath, but many visitors to the park do not. ] HOW PEBBLES TELL OF THEIR TRAVELS Other great stories in small space are told on glacial pebbles. Scientific men can often tell from the look of a pebble whether it was shaped by rivers, by the sea, by the sand blasts of desert winds, or by the glaciers. Not only that, but, if it is a glaciated pebble, on what part of the glacier it was carried; whether in the middle of its back, or on the sides, like the passengers in an Irish jaunting-car; or whether it rode underneath, like a tramp stealing a ride on the bumpers. The stones in the middle of the glacier's back naturally keep their sharp edges longer than stones on the side, ground as the side stones are by the moving ice mass against the mountain walls. And the stones on both top and sides would lose less of their edges than the stones underneath the ice. [Illustration: