THE SOIL 7 



abominable mystery." It was, like what is called "the 

 apparition of man on the earth," a mystery science has never 

 been able properly to account for. 



That soil was originally barren, and, under certain circum- 

 stances, is still barren, is not difficult to prove. G. F. Scott 

 Elliot, in Botany of To-day, has the following: 



'We do not realize the immensity of the task that lay 

 before the first vegetable cell. Here was the earth, utterly 

 and entirely mineral, without the slightest taste or touch of 

 organic matter, neither ' soil ' in the gardener's sense nor 

 bacteria; the water was without rnicro-organisms, and the 

 land was original rock or barren sand, or bore mud. 



' The author once had the opportunity of seeing on a large 

 scale the extraordinary difference between good and what 

 may be termed ' mineral ' earth. In making a tunnel near 

 Glasgow a layer of almost liquid clay had been struck. On a 

 field close by the ordinary surface-soil had been removed from 

 a few square yards and piled up in a long mound, and the 

 whitish clay, which had been buried deep in the earth since some 

 time in the ice-age, was deposited on the vacant space. 



" After the work had been stopped there was an extra- 

 ordinary difference between the flowers on the mound of surface- 

 soil and those on the mineral clay. During the first two 

 summers scarcely a plant succeeded in establishing itself on 

 the clay, and those few that did manage to grow did so un- 

 happily, and seemed to depend upon brown dust, or accidental 

 patches of earth. On the mounds of surface-soil the weeds 

 and grasses were extremely luxuriant." 



Volcanic action, as has been said, has always played a very 

 active part in the production of soil materials. The dust 

 thrown into the atmosphere by the volcanic explosion of 

 Kratakoa (an island lying off the south of Sumatra) coloured 

 the sunsets of the world for nearly three years. The amount 

 of dust thus created must have been immense. The more 

 recent volcanic eruption of Mount Pele, in the island of 

 Martinique, in the West Indies, created so much dust as to 

 interfere with the navigation of the Straits of Malacca. 



Many such cases could be cited to account for the disin- 

 tegration of ancient rocks and the deposit of soil did space 

 permit. It will, however, be evident that immense quantities 



