Susan age 12, of High Point, South Carolina, for her question:
How does a quicksand draw a person down?
This is a very serious subject because every year, usually during the outdoor summer season, a number of persons manage to step or fall into treacherous quick sands. Luckily, most of the victims are rescued in time. And most of them insist that, aside from all the other horrors, the sorry quicksand actually tried to drag then dorm, down to destruction.
Sole quick sands do indeed exert a dot mi yard pull and others do not. All of then are mixtures of sand and water, too thick for swimming and too thin to support the weight of a person's body. The soggy soup nay range from a few feet to 30 feet deep. It is held inside an underground basin, hollowed in dense bedrock below the surface layer of sand. The water cannot seep or drain through the floor or the walls of the impervious bedrock.
A treacherous quicksand that drags down its victims is located near a plentiful soupy of moving water. It may be on an ocean beach, where the tide washes over it twice every day. At high tide, the basin of soupy sand may be submerged. As the tide goes out, the ocean's enormous power drags the high water on the beach dorm and out to sea. This includes some or all the water trapped in the quicksand basin.
? Ioe be tide the victim who steps into this booby trap when the tide is doing out. The drag of tidal water draws him down deeper into the soggy sand. At low tide, this treacherous pocket may be drained dry to almost dry. Or it may be a calm mixture of sand and water, soft enough to sink in but with no power to draw its victims down.
Other soupy basins also form beside rivers and lakes. If the shore is sandy, they are soggy mixtures of fine sand and water, like the quick sands on ocean beaches. If the river or lake shore is ordinary dirt, the basins hold swampy mixtures of mud. and water. Unless a victim knows how to save himself, his body sinks down in any of these booby traps.
The treacherous ones are near rivers with swift or strong currents. This moves, water tends to percolate through its banks. Then there is a pocket of quicksand, it gloshes through the soupy basin exerting the strength of the current as it goes. The dragging force of moving water also pulls at an unlucky person who steps into the booby trap.
The quick sands on popular beaches are known and marked with danger signs. Read then: and beware. then exploring strange beaches off the beaten track, test the sand ahead with sticks and stones. If a stone sinks or a stick prods deep into soggy sand, turn back to safer ground.
When an unlucky person steps into a soupy mess, he feels tempted to struggle frantically to save himself. Never, wildly beating arms and legs only make him sink faster. The trick is to muster enough courage to be calm. Then slowly, very slowly inch around to lie flat on the back with legs apart and arms outstretched. In this motionless position, the victim can float on top until rescued. If rescue seems unlikely, it is possible to roll inch by Inch toward solid ground. This, however, is risky.