Do you know this of ours is very, very old- millions and millions of years old? For a long time there was no en or women living on it. Before the men came, there were only animals. And before the animals came, there was a time when no kind of existed on this earth.

You can read history in books. But in old times when men did not exist, surely no books could haven been written. How can we then find out what could have been written. How can we then find out what could have happened in those olden times?

We can’t just down and imagine every thing about those old days. Doing so would be no doubt, very interesting. We could make up in our mind the most interesting fairy-tales. But these tales might not be true because they were based not on facts but on mere imagination.

But having no books doesn’t mean that we can’t know the history of those old days. Although we have no books written I those far-off days, we do have many things that can tell us a great deal about the story of the earth. These things are almost as useful as any books could be.

We have rocks, mountains, seas, rivers, deserts, fossils and many other such things. All these things can serve as our books to know the earth’s early history. Many people have now written books which describe the history of the earth on the basis of these things. But the real way to understand this story is not to read it in books written by other people. We should go to the great book of nature itself, and try to read through its pages.

Every little stone that you see lying in the road or on the mountainside could be a little page in nature’s book. This little page could tell you something of the earth’s story, if only you knew how to read it. To be able to read any language- Hindi, Urdu or English, Italy and French, you have to learn its alphabet. So also you must learn the alphabet of nature before you can read her story in her books of stone and rock.