“Let us follow this little brook as far as we can,” I suggested, “and see what a stupid country can teach us,” purposely quoting my companion’s words, with a little emphasis. Not fifty rods from beautiful old trees the collected waters, as a little brook, flowed over an outcropping of stiff clay, and here we voluntarily paused, for what one of us had seen a hundred times before was now invested with new interest. There was here not merely a smooth scooping out of a mass of the clay, to allow the waters to pass swiftly by; the least resisting veins or strata, those containing the largest percentage of sand, had yielded quickly and been deeply gullied, while elsewhere the stiff, black ridges, often almost perpendicular, still withstood the current, and, confining the waters to narrow limits, produced a series of miniature rapids and one whirlpool that recalled the head-waters of many a river. Near by, where, when swollen by heavy rains, the brook had filled the little valley, temporary rivulets had rushed with fury over the clay, and cut in many places deep and narrow transverse channels. From their steep sides projected many a pebble that gave us “overhanging rocks,” and one small bowlder bridged a crevice in the clay, and was in use at the time as a highway for a colony of ants. Near it stood slender, conical pillars of slightly cemented sand, some six inches in height, and every one capped with a pebble of greater diameter than the apex of the supporting sand. These were indeed beautiful. “I have never seen them before,” remarked the boy. “Very likely,” I replied, “but you have crushed them under foot by the dozens.” They were not to be overlooked now, though, and in them he saw perfect reproductions of wonderful “monument rocks” which he had so lately seen pictured in the ponderous government geological report. Withdrawing to the field beyond, where a bird’s-eye view of the brook’s course could be obtained, we had spread out before us a miniature, in most of its essentials, of a cañon country. The various tints of the clay gave the many-colored rocks; the different densities of the several strata resulted in deep or shallow ravines, fantastic arches, caverns, and beetling precipices. On a ridiculously small scale, you may say. True, but not too small for the eyes of him who is anxious to learn.