Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/94

88 down the beach in search of those giant brown plants of the ocean, called kelps. He leads us a merry scramble, and at last finds what he is looking for (Dictyoneuron californicum) and sits on a boulder and gives us an open air lecture upon kelps in general and this one in particular. At its conclusion he announces that we must hurry back in order not to be late to dinner, for promptness in all things is the rule in this school. He who does not appear at meal time doesn't get any meal, that is all. It is a simple rule, and it is very effective.

After the noon meal the geologist takes his class out for their first lecture, finding a rocky, water-worn cove close by the water, where

we gather while he tells of the agency of water in rock formation and sculpture, with the cove itself as an example. No method of instruction could be more simple, none more effective. After the lecture we wander for hours over the rocks and study the strata in the cliffs above us. When we get tired of rocks we peer into the tide-pools and study the wonderful vegetation, of a kind all unknown to the inland botanist. Then we poke the spiny sea urchins in their snug niches in the pools, and pester the curious sea anemones, which are to be found everywhere. We watch the crabs, who in turn watch us and scuttle away sidewise with a very knowing look in their funny eyes. And thus the days go. There is always something a-going. One