The Adventures of a Grain of Dust Part 1

The Adventures of a Grain of Dust.

by Hallam Hawksworth.

JUST A WORD

I don't want you to think that I'm boasting, but I _do_ believe I'm one of the greatest travellers that ever was; and if anybody, living or dead, has ever gone through with more than I have I'd like to hear about it.

Not that I've personally been in all the places or taken part in all the things I tell in this book--I don't mean to say that--but I do ask you to remember how long it is possible for a grain of dust to last, and how many other far-travelled and much-adventured dust grains it must meet and mix with in the course of its life.

The heart of the most enduring grains of dust is a little particle of sand, the very hardest part of the original rock fragment out of which it was made. That's what makes even the finest mud seem gritty when it dries on your feet. And the longer these sand grains last the harder they get, as you may say; for it is the hardest part that remains, of course, as the grain wears down. Moreover, the smaller it gets the less it wears. If it happens to be spending its time on the seash.o.r.e, for example, the very same kind of waves that buffet it about so, waves that, farther down the beach hurl huge blocks of stone against the cliffs and crack them to pieces, not only do not wear away the sand grains, to speak of, but actually save them from wear. The water between the grains protects them; like little cus.h.i.+ons. And the sand in the finer dust grains carried by the wind is protected by the material that gathers on its surface.

Why, if a pebble of the size of a hickory-nut may be ages and ages old--almost in the very form in which you see it,[1] think what the age of this long-enduring part of a grain of dust must be.

[1] "The Strange Adventures of a Pebble."

Then remember what the ever-changing material on the surface of these immortal grains is made of; the dust particles of plants and animals, of buried Caesars and still older ancients, such as those early settlers of Chapter II.

Finally, if what we call flesh and blood can think and talk, why not a grain of dust? In fact, what is flesh and blood but dust come back to life? Says the poet--and the poets know:

"The very dust that blows along the street Once whispered to its love that life is sweet."

You see it's as likely a thing as could happen--this whole story.

THE GRAIN OF DUST.

(Per H. H.)

THE ADVENTURES OF A GRAIN OF DUST

It will be understood, as stated in the preface, that, like "The Strange Adventures of a Pebble," this is an autobiography. In other words, it is the grain of dust itself that tells the story of the life of the soil of which it is a part.

THE ADVENTURES OF A GRAIN OF DUST

CHAPTER I

(JANUARY)

In truth you'll find it hard to say How it could ever have been young It looks so old and grey.

--_Wordsworth._

THE LITTLE OLD MAN OF THE ROCK

Some say it was Leif Ericson, some say it was Columbus, but _I_ say it was The Little Old Man of the Rock.

And I go further. I say he not only discovered America but Europe, Asia, and Africa, and the islands of the sea. I'll tell you why.

I. HOW LITTLE MR. LICHEN DISCOVERED THE WORLD

As everybody knows, we must all eat to live, and how could either Columbus or anybody else--except Mr. Lichen--have done much discovering in a world where there was nothing to eat? When the continents first rose out of the sea[2] there wasn't anything to eat but rock. Rock, to be sure, makes very good eating if you have the stomach for it, as Mr.

Lichen has. It contains sulphur, phosphorus, silica, potash, soda, iron, and other things that plants are fond of, but ordinary plants can't get these things out of the rock--let alone human beings and other animals; and that's why Mr. Lichen had the first seat at the table and always does.

[2] "The Strange Adventures of a Pebble."

On bare granite boulders in the fields, on the rocky ruins at the foot of mountains, and even on the mountain tops themselves, on projecting rocks far above the snow line, you find the lichens. On rock of every kind they settle down and get to work. They never complain of the climate--hot or cold, moist or dry. When the land goes dry they simply knock off, and then when a little moisture is to be had they're busy again. A little goes a long way with members of the family who live in regions where water is scarce. Indeed, most of them get along with hardly any moisture at all. The very hardiest of them are so small that a whole colony looks like a mere stain upon the rock.

While lichens are generally gray--they seem to have been _born_ old, these queer little men of the rock--you can find some that are black, others bright yellow or cream-colored. Others are pure white or of various rusty and leaden shades. Some are of the color of little mice.

To make out any shapes in these tiny forms, you must look very close; and if you have a hand lens you will be surprised to find that this fairy-land of the lichens isn't so drab as it seems to the naked eye.

For there are flower gardens--the tiny spore cups. Some of them are vivid crimson and, standing out on a background of pure white, they're very lovely. Some of the science people believe the colors attract the minute insects that the lens shows wandering around in these fairy flower gardens. But just what the insects can be there for n.o.body knows, since the lichens are scattered, not by insects, but by the wind.

As a rule lichens grow only in open, exposed places, although some are like the violets--they enjoy the shade. Some varieties grow on trees, some on the ground, others on the bleached bones of animals in fields and wastes and on the bones of whales cast up by the sea.

Of course the whole country was awfully wild when the continents first came out of the sea, but that just suited Mr. Lichen, for there is one thing he can't stand, and that is city life, with its smoke and bad air.

"Why, one can't get one's breath!" he says.

WHY THE LICHENS DISLIKE CITY LIFE

So, while you will not meet Mr. Lichen in cities--at least, until after the people are all gone; that is to say, on ruins of cities of the past--you will find him beautifying the ancient walls of abbeys, old seats of learning like Oxford, and the tombstones of the cities of the dead.

Mr. Lichen always travels light. On the surface of the lichens are what seem to be little grains of dust, and these serve the purpose of seeds.

A puff of wind will carry away thousands of them, and so start new colonies in lands remote.

You see, the fact that he requires so little baggage must have been a great advantage to Mr. Lichen in those early days, when he had to discover not only America but all the rest of the world map, spread out so wide and far. You can just imagine how the grains of lichen dust, the seed of the race, must have gone whirling across the world with the winds.

But if a breath of wind would carry them away so easily, how could they _stay_ on a rock, these tiny lichen travellers? Especially as they have no roots? They have curious rootlike fibres which absorb food by dissolving the rock, and this dissolved rock, hardening, holds them on.

The fibres of lichens that grow on granite actually sink into it by dissolving the mica and forcing their way between the other kinds of particles in the rock that they can't eat. Thus they help break it up.

As we all know, little people are great eaters in proportion to their size, but it is said the lichens are the heartiest eaters in the world.

They eat more mineral matter than any other plant, and all plants are eaters of minerals.