Kent Richardson, age 7, of Edmond, Oklahoma, for his question;
How can you tell quicksand from ordinary sand?
Summer is the time for us all to go exploring the wondrous outdoors. There are a million places to go and a million miracles to behold. The summer world of adventure has a number of booby traps. A bold explorer does not hide in a safe but because of them but, instead, he uses his brains to learn the way around them.
The World of the Great Outdoors is as safe as your own home or the street on which you live. But just as you can hurt yourself badly or even lose your life at home or on the street, so the outdoors has some dangers to look out for. Every year during the summer, Andy loses a few of his thousands of young readers and pen pals because they swim out too far from shore, or lose their balance on a steep cliff, or enter a cave that collapses. But just because there are a few such risks doesn't mean that you hide away at home. What it does mean is that when you go to the woods or the beach you should use your common sense, learn what and where the risks are, and not take any silly chances.
Today's question gives you a hint about the proper way to cope with the problem. Quicksands and muddy bogs and tricky swamps are indeed dangerous booby traps. But they are not alive and they cannot chase you. The sensible thing is to find out just how deadly dangerous they are, what they can do and what they cannot do, and where they are. Then, when you have found one, you will turn your feet walk calmly away from the horrible booby trap.
A quicksand may be lurking on a beach by the sea or on the sandy beach by a lake or a river. As a rule, it looks just like the stretch of firm, safe sand around it. Sometimes it may look wetter or soggier than the safe sand, but not always. So you cannot trust you eyes to spot it. Some of the trickiest booby traps are muddy bogs and quagmires along the banks of lakes and rivers. They act like quicksands and, like quicksands, they lurk hidden in the muddy ground them. Naturally, there are no quick¬sands on our public beaches. But most of us like to explore unknown beaches and de¬serted trails by lakes and rivers. Then we need to know a few tricks to keep us out of trouble.