CHAPTER II. 



SOIL OF THE MOUNTAIN. 



THE term soil applies to the film forming the surface of 

 the pulverulent mineral mass composed of, and covering the 

 rock formations of the crust of the earth, and floating like a 

 mantle, or folded like an outward integument around cer- 

 tain portions of the body of the planet uncovered by water. 

 The soil is the point of contact and union of two separate 

 elements of creation, the worlds of organic and inorganic 

 matter. In the soil, the rock, weary of its brute immobility 

 and long, deep slumber, tries to awaken into the more de- 

 lightful dance of the organic elements, and to introduce itself 

 to the higher sphere of life ; " strives to become a different 

 and attain the light." In the soil the ponderable and im- 

 ponderable commence the mystic circulation of organic ex- 

 istence. Soils derive their constituent principles from the 

 earth and the air ; the plant, or special possessor thereof, 

 being characterized as "organic water which is polarized 

 upon two sides towards the earth and the air." From the 

 earth comes the body, or mineral elements forming the sub- 

 stance of soils; from the air certain chemical principles, 

 without which plants could not grow. Given then, simpli- 

 city and homogeneity in component elements of soils, there 

 will follow simplicity and homogeneity of vegetable forms ; 

 and, as a necessary corollary, with greatly diversified geo- 

 logical, mineralogical, and chemical elements, will arrive 

 complexity and exaltation in structure and composition of 

 the plant world, existing as a medium within and upon the 

 same. 



Thus, from thin barren cuticles of sand, forming the 

 covering of mountain heights, to the deep loam, rich with 

 chemical and organic elements, of the alluvial and diluvial 



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