Ernell Lindstrom, age 11, of Victoria, B.C., for the question:

How was salt formed in the ocean?

The ocean cannot form salt. It can only get it by stealing it and it has been busy stealing salt and other minerals from the land since the earth began. The great oceans carry out this robbery with the help' of a vast army of smaller thieves. Every river, every creek: every little giggling stream is in league with the oceans to rob the land of its salt and many other minerals.

Spill a pinch of salt on the drain hoard and carry some water over it. Catch the water in a bowl in the sink The sa1t will disappear because the water will dissolve it. Taste the water in the bowl the salt is dissolved in it. Now multiply your little stream. by countless million include every stream in the world. There is salt in the rocks over which they run. They dissolve salt and other minerals and merrily take their loads of loot down to dump into the oceans