I.] THE SOIL OP THE FIELD. 41 



is more. It is a maker of soil, likewise; and by it 

 mainly the soil of an upland field is made, whether it 

 be carried down to the sea or not. 



If you will look into any quarry you will see that 

 however compact the rock may be a few feet below 

 the surface, it becomes, in almost every case, rotten 

 and broken up as it nears the upper soil, till you often 

 cannot tell where the rock ends and the soil begins. 



Now this change has been produced by rain. 

 First, mechanically, by rain in the shape of ice. 

 The winter rain gets into the ground, and does by 

 the rock what it has done by the stones of many an 

 old building. It sinks into the porous stone, freezes 

 there, expands in freezing, and splits and peels the 

 stone with a force which is slowly but surely crumbling 

 the whole of Northern Europe and America to powder. 



Do you doubt me ? I say nothing but what you 

 can judge of yourselves. The next time you go up 

 any mountain, look at the loose broken stones with 

 which the top is coated, just underneath the turf. 

 What has broken them up but frost ? Look again, as 

 stronger proof, at the talus of broken stones screes, 

 as they call them in Scotland ; rattles, as we call them 

 in Devon which lie along the base of many mountain 

 cliffs. What has brought them down but frost ? If 

 you ask the country folk they will tell you whether I 

 am right or not. If you go thither, not in the summer, 

 but just after the winter's frost, you will see for your- 

 selves, by the fresh frost-crop of newly-broken bits, 

 that I am right. Possibly you may find me to be 

 even more right than is desirable, by having a few 

 angular stones, from the size of your head to that of 

 your body, hurled at you by the frost-giants up above. 



