Phyllis McRae, age 11,

What is sand made of?

Sand is made from small, hard grains of rock. The sand on a golden beach is made mostly from quartz grains. The white sands of the White Sands desert of New Mexico are made from grains of. gypsum. The black sands which border some of the Pacific islands are made from grains of dark lava rock. Any kind of rock becomes sand when it is chomped into pieces which range from one five hundredth part of an inch to the size of a pea. Larger fragments form gravel and still larger fragments are pebbles,

Not every kind of rock, however, can be made into sand. All sands were once part of large, solid rocks. They were chomped to pieces by wind and weather, by pounding tides and running water. Softer rocks are pounded to fine dust and powder under these harsh treatments. Only the harder rocks such as quartz and basalt can resist long enough to become tough little grains of sand.