CHAPTER IV—THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF A GRAIN OF SOIL
Why, you ask, are there such terrible things as volcanos? Of what use can they be?
They are of use enough, my child; and of many more uses, doubt not, than we know as yet, or ever shall know. But of one of their uses I can tell you.
They make, or help to make, divers and sundry curious things, from gunpowder to your body and mine.
What? I can understand their helping to make gunpowder, because the sulphur in it is often found round volcanos; and I know the story of the brave Spaniard who, when his fellows wanted materials for gunpowder, had himself lowered in a basket down the crater of a South American volcano, and gathered sulphur for them off the burning cliffs: but how can volcanos help to make me? Am I made of lava? Or is there lav
