All this just about the crystals of the ice, but the work of the crystal people in making snowflakes is even more wonderful. In the bound volumes of St. Nicholas for March, 1882, in your Public Library you will find a most interesting account of a man in Vermont who began studying snowflakes and taking their pictures when he was a boy. He's known all over the world as the great authority on snowflakes. In the Encyclopedia Americana you will find a long article by him in which he tells the many interesting things he has learned about the ways of the fairies of the snow And how many pictures do you suppose he has in his snowflake gallery now? Over a thousand, and no two alike! Just to think! Some of these wonderful little people of the fairyland of change sit at the table with us at every meal--the sugar crystals. And they are among the most interesting members of the family. Under the word _Sugar_ you will find that the sugar crystals themselves eat and grow. But what do you suppose they eat? Not sugar. (You may easily guess, however, they have a sweet tooth.) Yes, and at their home table, before they come to _your_ home table, they have their regular meals, and they are not allowed a second helping until they have eaten the first! Answers to Conundrums in H. & S. No. 4 The east and west rivers in California were there before the mountains rose and so cut their way through; while the north and south rivers between the ranges owe their origin to the mountains themselves. The big twin river referred to is the Euphrates. The greatest falls in the world are the Victoria Falls on the Zambesi. CHAPTER VI (JUNE) The rivers laugh in the valley, Hills dreaming of their past, And all things silently opening-- Opening into the Vast. * * * * * That pebble is older than Adam, Secrets it hath to tell. These rocks--they cry out history, Could I but listen well. --_William C. Gannet_: "_Sunday on the Hill-Top_." THE SECRETS OF THE HILLS I. In the Bad Land Library It has been said[17] that crystals are dreaming of life, they act so like living things. We may imagine the crystals in the granite rocks which first came into being with the cooling of the fire globe, dreaming out the long procession of life and change that followed them. [Footnote 17: John Burroughs: "The Breath of Life."] But what nightmares they must have had when they foresaw such creatures as the one on page 23, that grotesque, that unbelievable combination of bird and beast, the cerotosaurus! The bones of such monsters are one of the most astonishing secrets of the hills. DIFFERENT KINDS OF MOUNTAINS [Illustration: HOW THE BAD LANDS GOT THEIR NAME "The Bad Lands are so called because they are bad for travelling--that is, if you're in anything of a hurry!" ]