Well, anyhow, now that work had begun in earnest, Charlie was never tired of studying every new instrument used on board the ship and on shore. That was his new fad. The more he studied geology and meteorology, for instance, the more he wanted to. Had he possessed fifty minds, fifty storehouses for information, Charlie would have set about filling them.
“Look at that,” Charlie said, exultantly, to Walter one day.
“Well, what is it? A bit of black greyish stone with some spangles in it.”
“That’s granite.”
Walter was in a teasing mood that day.
“And this?”
“Some exceedingly black and dirty clay.”
“No; but books both, or rather pages from the great Book of Nature.
“All scientists in the present age,” added Charlie, “are busy in their own particular branch, and in writing or building chapters of that Book, and when they have finished their works, these chapters will be pieced together, and then we’ll have the story of the world.”