composition, and the rest by another well-known scientist, all relating
to the strata and minerals of this very portion of the coast. Being just
then at leisure, she began one in which a certain sentence had caught
her attention, and soon looked up with an air of excitement. "See here,
Morton! This is certainly a mistake; and in B----'s paper, too," reading
aloud a certain statement in regard to the rock formations about a mile
inland. "He has, you see, made the same mistake we did at first in
regard to the dip of that vein, and which we afterwards discovered to be
wrong, when we came across the outcropping near the old Judd farm. Don't
you remember?"

"Yes," said Morton, dropping his fish-lines to come nearer; "let's hear
what he says about it."

She read him a page or two, and they talked the matter over still
further; then she continued her reading, only to break out again after a
little.

"Listen, Morton! Professor Grandet is with us. He isn't sure, but, from
surface indications, he thinks just as we do, and the two men are having
a great argument. They're going to discuss the matter next week before
the Geological Society. Do you know, I'm half tempted to write Professor
Grandet what we have discovered? It might make it perfectly clear to
him."

"Well, I would," said Morton, going back to his lines, more interested
in them than in what, had he known it, was to have a great and lasting
influence on his own and sisters' lives.

So next day Sara seated herself, with an old atlas for a desk, and wrote