Pebble

“ Not a mote in the beam, not an herb on the mountain, not a pebble on the shore, not a seed far-blown into the wilderness, but contributes to the lore that seeks in all the true principle of life—the beautiful—the joyous—the immortal. ”

“ Pebbles. - The millers in our country use to putt a black pebble under the pinne of ye axis of the mill-wheele, to keep the brasse underneath from wearing; and they doe find by experience, that nothing doth weare so long as that. The bakers take a certain pebble, which they putt in the vaulture of their oven, which they call the warning-stone: for when that is white the oven is hot.
In the river Avon at Lacock are large round pebbles. I have not seen the like elsewhere. Quaere, if any transparent ones? From Merton, southward to the sea, is pebbly. ”

“ It were vain to deny that the lapidary’s acquaintance might in time prove an expensive amusement; for pebble-hunting is a hobby, and like all hobbies is liable to be over-ridden. But experience begets caution. For a score of stones which a tyro will leave on the board to be cut, a connoisseur will not venture above two or three. ”

“ When people are sitting in a greenhouse at night with no lamp lighted, talking or smoking, they sometimes hear a smash as if a pebble had been dropped on the glass from above. It is a dytiscus beetle, whose compound eyes have mistaken the shine of the glass in the moonlight for the gleam of a pond. ”

“ Suddenly, in a tussock of marram, his nose and he stopped dead. Nothing moved. Then he bit, and a second buff-and-black-mottled soft body stretched slowly out into the open as death took it—a second baby peewit. He circled again, fairly racing now, and so nearly fell over a third pebble come to life that it scuttled back between his legs; but he spun upon himself like a snake, and caught it ere it had gone a yard. He snapped again, held it, dropped it, and another downy, soft, warm chick thing straightened, horribly and pathetically, in the unpitying sun, and was still—a third baby peewit. ”

“ Observe, then the peculiar way in which the outer crust of an old pebble is worn, as compared with that of one which has newly descended upon the beach. This crust or cuticle is highly suggestive, if you can once come to understand it; and as a hopeful indication of progress, you may safely assume that you do understand it, when you find that you can obtain pebbles such as nine persons out of ten somehow never “have the luck” to meet with. Sometimes a stone has parted with its original coating, and has donned another: and this operation may either be complete, or still in fieri. ”

“ This was to be followed, upon our return, by an immense bonfire which we were to build to foretell our futures by the pebble prophecy.
Many of our expected guests had never heard before of the ancient Hallowe'en custom of placing pebbles on the ground and then building a fire over them to learn of life or death. As the legend had it, should a pebble be at all disturbed by the heat or falling embers, death would surely follow within the year for the person who placed that pebble. ”

“ Pebbles can be obtained free of expense. Nature’s inexhaustible treasure-house is always open. She invites you to approach and help yourself at will. She offers with unstinting hand stones of imperishable beauty. It is ungracious to scorn her liberality.
We propose, then, to give particulars of British pebbles—how to recognise those worth collecting, where to look for them, and how to cut and polish them for yourselves. No writer for boys, so far as I know, has ever yet given practical instructions about cutting and polishing stones. The best pebble unpolished looks dull and dead. ”

“ As she was crossing a wood a bird sang to her to pick up a shining pebble which she would find in a fountain close by, and to use it when needed. She took the bird’s advice, and in due time arrived at the house of Locrinos. Luckily she only found his wife at home, who was much struck by the Princess’s youth and beauty and sweet gentle manners, and still further impressed by the present of the shining pebble.
She readily let Fairer-than-a-Fairy have the fire, and in return for the stone she gave her another, which, she said, might prove useful some day. ”

“ Here, a couple of hours may be taken to as many miles; and if you do not shut your eyes, you must fill your pockets. But look with resolution for good ones.
From Sandown to Shanklin, in the opposite direction, it is scarcely inferior. It was once even better; but, lying so near at hand, it has been unceasingly hunted over; and to look for a fine pebble there now, is almost like hoping to find a hare sitting in your kitchen-garden. ”

“ Every day, in summer, many ladies and children go down to this beach pebble-hunting, carrying their lunch-baskets with them. They lie down at full length upon their faces on the drifts of polished pebbles, and with a stick dig down into the mass in search of special beauties. A quart of fine ones is a good day's work, and a lady of unusually fastidious taste will frequently work all day for a cupfull. Collections of these pebbles may be seen in most of the better class of houses in San Francisco, and along the coast, though they cannot be considered as of any great value. ”

“ He held the pebble in his left hand and struck it a sharp blow with another pebble. He went on striking, round and round the pebble, taking off a flake or a big chip at every blow. At last the part of the pebble left was too small to work with any more. ”

“ The soldanella grows among the thick pebble beds and the big boulders right on the edges of the glaciers. It is a member of the primrose family. It may be pink, white, or blue. The blue flowers are most common. But blue, pink, or white, these baby bells are always born twins; two sisters side by side on the same stalk, showing their dear fairy faces just above those layers of ice. They are such delicate little things you wonder how they can ever stand it. But ice, pshaw, they don't mind it at all. ”

“ In its principal features the whole has preserved the form of an oblong flattened pebble, having undergone a natural preparatory process of friction by water, to which art has indeed had little to add in order to adapt the pebble to its intended design as an implement or weapon. ”

“ This is a small rounded water-worn pebble, in substance resembling quartz and of a reddish-brown color. It is suspended by a string held between the thumb and finger of the shaman, who is guided in his search by the swinging of the pebble, which, according to their theory, will swing farther in the direction of the lost article than in the contrary direction! The shaman, who is always fasting, repeats the formula, while closely watching the the motions of the swinging pebble. ”

“ Then a thought came to him, and he took a pebble and dropped it into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped it into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the Pitcher. At last, at last, he saw the water mount up near him; and after casting in a few more pebbles he was able to quench his thirst and save his life.
Little by little does the trick. ”

“ Pebble cried:
“Yes, indeed, I love little children, and would rather hear their laughter than any other sound in the world.”
“Is that why you tickled me?” questioned Ray, and the little man replied:
“Well, of course, it’s my business to make people laugh. I was looking out for some more coal, you know.”
“You certainly have a very large family to keep warm,” remarked Ray.
124 “Yes,” answered Mr. Pebble, “and it grows larger every year, and more than all, Tommy is a great care.”
“Is he mischievous?” said Ray. ”

“ And, diving into his pocket, he pulled out the cheese and squeezed it till the whey ran out of it, and said, "Now, I fancy that I have done better than you."
The Giant wondered what to say, and could not believe it of the little man; so, catching up another pebble, he flung it so high that it almost went out of sight, saying, "There, you pigmy, do that if you can."
"Well done," said the Tailor; "but your pebble will fall down again to the ground. I will throw one up which will not come down;" and, dipping into his pocket, he took out the bird and threw it into the air. ”

“ It has been thought that man is the only tool-using animal, yet here is one of these wasps, Ammophila, that uses a little pebble to pound down the earth over her nest. She takes the pebble in her mandibles, as you or I would take a stone in our hand, and uses it as a hammer to pound down the soil above the cavity that holds her egg. ”

“ Other great stories in small space are told on glacial pebbles. Scientific men can often tell from the look of a pebble whether it was shaped by rivers, by the sea, by the sand blasts of desert winds, or by the glaciers. ”

“ I could only see one felstone specimen in the pebble-bed (though others probably might be found) . In the Boulder-clay felstone pebbles and boulders are far from being rare [4] . The pebble-bed is not confined to the cavern or the ground straight in front of it, as it would have been if deposited by a stream flowing out of the cavern; but it may be seen in a recess a short distance east of the mouth of the cavern, and, as I have already remarked, at intervals further east. Several examples of it may be found near the Cefn cave, clinging to the rocky slope. ”

“ A pebble placed in the way of the ring-ripples produced by our heavy rain-drops on a tranquil pond will throw back a large fraction of the ripple incident upon it, while the fractional part of a larger wave thrown back by the same pebble might be infinitesimal. ”

“ The things that struck us as most remarkable were the unerring judgment in the selection of a pebble of precisely the right size to fit the entrance, and the use of the small pebble in smoothing down and packing the soil over the opening, together with the instinct that taught them to remove every evidence that the earth had been disturbed.
Since the Ammophiles of our species make their nests first and then do their hunting it follows that they must sometimes carry their prey for a considerable distance. The most ambitious attempt of this kind that we ever witnessed was made by gracilis. ”

“ By-and-by a pebble is rolled in, and being almost large enough to fill the cavity, it does not readily wash out, but grinds round and round with the motion of the sea. So the process goes on, perhaps for centuries, perhaps with long intervals of almost sameness; every stone that is washed-in enlarging the work; while, when once the hollow has become only ever so little larger or deeper than those which surround it, the pebbles will have an increasing tendency to roll in and to stay there. ”

“ The female was reposing at the spot where it was intended the nest should be, while the male kept guard, walking proudly about on his little domain, now turning an eye up to watch the birds flying overhead, then stooping to pick up a pebble to hold it a few moments in his bill and drop it again, and then marching up to his mate, whereupon they would open wide their yellow beaks, stretch out their necks and join their voices in a loud triumphant chant. ”

“ We have thus acquired satisfactory proof that the flint of which our pebble is composed, was once fluid in an ocean teeming with beings, of genera and species unknown in a living state, and that it consolidated and became imbedded in the chalk, which was then being deposited at the bottom of the sea; hence the shells, corals, and other organic remains, which we now find attached to its surface, and enclosed in its substance. ”

“ Wherever a pebble occurs along the surface of this sand, it has invariably a hollow before it on the side facing the direction whence the stream is flowing, and a long tail of sand pointing down the channel. If we watch the motion of the water along its bed, the denuding agency may be seen actively at work. Every pebble that protrudes above the shallow streamlet arrests the course of the current, which is then diverted in three directions. ”

“ Two zoophytes, of the agatine-siliceous kind, were picked up on this spot about a twelvemonth since, for which large sums of money were offered in Ventnor the same day. For one of this sort, an American gentleman, not long ago, gave eight pounds sterling. But there is in Brighton, or was till very recently, a pebble from the Rottingdean beach, for which fifty guineas have been offered to its possessor, and refused. I have not seen it myself, but I am told that it is a spotted pyriform choanite; the material, very beautiful agate. ”

“ As the big lake dried up, and grew smaller and smaller and saltier and saltier, its shores were bounded successively by those wave-cut cliffs.
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IV. Stories Written on the Pebbles
Sometimes when a geologist picks up a pebble and looks at it a moment he can hear the roar of mountain torrents and of lowland streams in flood. If the pebble is round it shows that it has been carried far and rolled about by streams. ”

“ The water-worn pebble, in which a natural edge has been made straighter and sharper by grinding, may be taken as the original and typical form of the celt. Rude South American tribes select suitable water-worn stones and rub down their edges, sometimes merely grasping them in the hand to use them, and sometimes mounting them in a wooden handle; and axes made in this way, by grinding the edge of a suitable pebble, and fixing it in a withe handle, are known in Australia. ”

“ This little pebble is every year married to this little shrub; and the high priest told me that on the present occasion the procession consisted of eight elephants, twelve hundred camels, four thousand horses, all mounted and elegantly caparisoned. On the leading elephant of this cortège, and the most sumptuously decorated, was carried the pebble god, who was taken to pay his bridal visit (barāt) to the little shrub goddess. All the ceremonies of a regular marriage are gone through ”