Soil-Carriers 47 



itself, all the upper portion of the soil being banked, 

 like a snow-drift, against the hedge. 



But for the hedges the wind would no doubt have 

 spread the soil fairly over the neighbouring fields. Its 

 efforts on this occasion were, however, certainly mis- 

 directed. 



But when the wind is able to rai?e dust from the 

 fields high in the air, as it does at times, it may carry 

 it great distances — miles, and even hundreds of miles 

 — and so do real service to the soil elsewhere. 



There is naturally most dust in winter and early 

 spring, when the fields are bare, more or less, and 

 especially during the dry March winds. Clouds of 

 dust are raised from ploughed land, and in dry weather 

 even from grass-land. Large quantities are transferred 

 in this way from the high lands to the lower. 



But dust may be blown uphill as well as down, and 

 it may be carried over dry sands, or absorbent rocks, 

 where water would be sucked up so quickly as to be of 

 no use as a carrier. 



It has been suggested that much of the fertility of 

 our own land may be due to the east w^nd, for which 

 few people have a good word to say. The east wind is 

 a dry wind, and undoubtedly a dusty wind, as we know 

 it ; but when the climate was colder it must have been 

 sharper, and drier, and dustier still ; and it may well be, 

 therefore, that it has helped to bring about that mixture 

 of the soils to which they owe their fertility. 



As to the enormous distances which fine dust is often 

 carried, we have positive proof in the brick-red or 

 cinnamon-coloured sirocco dust which falls thickly upon 

 vessels in the Atlantic at certain seasons of the year, 

 and is carried to Europe as far inl;ind as the Tyrol. 



