The most curious thing about this green sand is that it is still forming in the water along our coasts. Here the limestone shells of dead foraminifera are slowly filling up with the green substance as their bodies decay. The shells are slowly dissolved by the sea water at the same time, so that the green sand grains give a perfect cast of the inside of the shells.
I became interested in this sand while I was in college. The professor sent me down to Mullica Hill to get a load of it to experiment with. He wanted to find a way to work it. At Mullica Hill I heard that a farmer by the name of Peter Norman had a pit on his farm. One of the loafers there offered to go along and show me the way. I told him he might go if he would get the farmer to let me have a load of sand for nothing and help me load. This he promised to do. On the way he informed me that Norman’s daughter, Euphemia, had taken a notion to him and that probably they would jine up. I said I was looking for a wife myself and if I liked her looks I would take her along, but I must be sure first that she was a good cook. He looked me over as if I were some kind of an insect and asked me how much I weighed. I told him all of fifty tons.
When we got to the house Euphemia came to the door herself. I must say she was a fine looking girl with very mischievous eyes. She said her father was down at the other end of the farm and my friend had better go and get him. Then she giggled. When he had gone she looked at me and giggled some more. Said I might go ahead and take all the sand I wanted. I asked her if she was sure her father would be willing and she said: Sure! She said she would show me the pit and got on the seat beside me. As we drove along she told me that one of her girl friends had told Sim she was gone on him.
I said, “yes, so he told me.”
“Did he?” says she, “the poor simp!”
“If you go about breaking hearts like that,” said I, “you’ll get in jail next. I understand that the sheriff has been instructed to jug all the flappers.” This made her giggle some more.
She stood by the side of the pit while I threw the sand into the truck. After I had been digging a bit my shovel struck something that felt like rubber. It was round like a rubber ball as I uncovered it and larger than a canteloupe. I tried to throw it out, but it seemed to be fastened to something at one side. I went on digging and was getting interested when I heard some one shouting, and there was the farmer coming as fast as he could, waving his arms and shouting with all the breath he had left. When he reached the pit he was puffing and blowing so he could hardly speak, but he made it plain that he was cross because I had dug without permission, said I had no business to do it, it was trespass, and he had a great mind to have me arrested.
I said that his daughter had allowed me to dig but this did not seem to satisfy him. Euphemia told him I wasn’t hurting anything and he needn’t make a goose of himself, so he quieted down. Asked what the round ball was? I told him I didn’t know and he got a shovel and dug too. After awhile the girl said:
“Why it looks like a man!”
It did, too. We went on digging and uncovered his legs and then his feet. They were feet all right, but he was the queerest looking thing you ever saw. After he was uncovered we turned him over and I declare he had a nose, mouth and ears; it was a man! But the oddest looking man you ever saw. His body was nearly transparent; like cloudy glass. You could see all his bones through this. He looked like stiff jelly with pieces of cotton in it. We looked at him and then at one another.