"You have found a gold mine?" Roger inquired excitedly.
The geologist smiled at the boy's sudden conclusion that unimagined wealth lay exposed before them.
"Gold does not come in quarries like building stone," he said with a laugh. "Did you think it came in great masses of rock?"
"No," answered Roger, "but I thought it came in veins through the rocks."
"So it does, but you can find it in sand. What is sand?"
The boy thought a moment. "Why," he said, at length, "sand is rocks ground small by the action of wind and water."
"Very well," said his chief. "Now if some of the rocks ground small contained a vein of gold, what would happen to it?"
"The gold would be turned into sand, too," answered the boy.
"Only in part," said the older man. "The gold is hard and heavy, and when it is eroded from the rocks it comes in flakes rather than small particles. Then, you see, when sand is washed this way," illustrating by a cradling motion, "the gold sinks to the bottom as the sand is washed away from it, and you can take out the pieces of gold with comparative ease."
"Then it ought to be very easy to get gold!" exclaimed the boy with visions of Arabian Nights wealth floating before his eyes.