SEARCH
0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Prev | Current Page 114 | Next

Ballantyne, R. M. (Robert Michael), 1825-1894

"The Coral Island A Tale of the Pacific Ocean"

I don't see how you can hope to succeed
unless you do that."
"Most true," said I, pondering what my companion said. "But I fear that
that will be very difficult."
"Not at all," cried Jack, rolling his towel up into a ball and throwing
it into the face of Peterkin, who had been grinning and winking at him
during the last five minutes--"not at all. Look here. There is water
of a certain saltness in the sea; well, fill your tank with sea-water,
and keep it at that saltness by marking the height at which the water
stands on the sides. When it evaporates a little, pour in _fresh_
water from the brook till it comes up to the mark, and then it will be
right, for the salt does not evaporate with the water. Then there's
lots of seaweed in the sea; well, go and get one or two bits of seaweed
and put them into your tank. Of course the weed must be alive, and
growing to little stones; or you can chip a bit off the rocks with the
weed sticking to it. Then, if you like, you can throw a little sand and
gravel into your tank and the thing's complete."
"Nay, not quite," said Peterkin, who had been gravely attentive to this
off-hand advice--"not quite; you must first make three little men to
dive in it before it can be said to be perfect; and that would be
rather difficult, I fear, for two of them would require to be
philosophers. But hallo! what's this? I say, Ralph, look here. There's
one o' your crabs up to something uncommon.


Pages:
102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126