A Compend of Geology (Classic Reprint) - Hardcover

Inhaltsangabe

Excerpt from A Compend of Geology

Origin of soil - If we dig into the earth anywhere, at a certain depth, greater in some places than in others, we find rock. How was the earthy soil formed? Per haps some imagine that it is an original clothing intended to cover the rocky nakedness of the new-born earth. But the very first lesson to be learned by the study of geology is that everything that we see, even the most enduring such as hills, mountains, rocks, etc. - have become what they are, usually by a slow process.

N ow, soils are no exceptions. All soil is formed by a disintegration or rotting down of rocks. Sometimes the soils remain resting on the rocks from which they were formed sometimes they are removed to another place, as, e. G., from hill-sides to bottom-lands sometimes they are carried by streams to great distances, and deposited as sedi ments, and again raised as land but in all cases they are formed in the same way - viz., by the rotting down of rocks under the slow action Of the atmosphere.

The active ingredients of the air in this process are oxygen, carbonic acid (carbon dioxide), and water, as va por or as moisture. N ow, rain-water contains in solution both oxygen and carbon dioxide. Therefore, rain-water, wetting the surface and penetrating the cracks Of rocks, is the great agent of the formation of soil.

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