Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 September 1892 — What Is so Durable as Water? [ARTICLE]

What Is so Durable as Water?

Walla Walla Statesman. The proprietor of the Statesman has in his possession a rounded crystal of chalcedony three inches long, of an oval form, white and translucent. It is but a thin shell, and when held to the light is seen to be nearly filled with water, which flows about as the object is turned this way or that. What makes it interesting is that the water has undoubtedly been inclosed and hermetically sealed in this natural receptacle fur thousands and thousands of years. Probably it was there long before Moses was born, and yet not a drop of it has evaporated. Originally there was a cavity in the rock formed by a volcanic buble. Water percolated into it, bringing in solution silex, which was deposited on the walls of a little hollow in a coating of chalcedony. In time it would have been filled solid with beautiful crystals forming those “geodes," as they are called, which are nature’s treasure caskets found concealed in rocky formations where least expected, and revealing wonders of brilliant color. Agates are made in the same way. However, in this instance the small channel by which the water flowed in and out became closed up in some way, and so the process stopped. After a iapse of no one can tell how many centuries the stony mass containing the chalcedony chamber with its liquid conteuts was broken open and It fell out.