It happened that Pompeii lay beyond the influence of the subsequent great eruptions of Vesuvius, so that it afterward received only slight ash showers. Herculaneum, on the other hand, has century by century been more and more deeply buried until at the present time it is covered by many sheets of lava. This is particularly to be regretted, for the reason that, while Pompeii was a seaport town of no great wealth or culture, Herculaneum was the residence place of the gentry, people who possessed libraries, the records of which can be in many cases deciphered, and from which we might hope to obtain some of the lost treasures of antiquity. The papyrus rolls on which the books of that day were written, though charred by heat and time, are still interpretable.

After the great explosion of 79, Vesuvius sank again into repose. It was not until 1056 that vigorous eruptions again began. From time to time slight explosions occurred, none of which yielded lava flows; it was not until the date last mentioned that this accompaniment of the eruption began to appear. In 1636, after a repose of nearly a century and a half, there came a very great outbreak, which desolated a wide extent of country on the northwestern side of the cone. At this stage in the history of the crater the volcanic flow began to attain the sea. Washing over the edge of the old original crater of Monte Somma, and thus lowering its elevation, these streams devastated, during the eruption just mentioned and in various other outbreaks, a wide field of cultivated land, overwhelming many villages. The last considerable eruption which yielded large quantities of lava was that of 1872, which sent its tide for a distance of about six miles.

Since 1636 the eruptions of Vesuvius have steadily increased in frequency, and, on the whole, diminished in violence. In the early years of its history the great outbreaks were usually separated by intervals of a century or more, and were of such energy that the lava was mostly blown to dust, forming clouds so vast that on two occasions at least they caused a midnight darkness at Constantinople, nearly twelve hundred miles away. This is as if a volcano at Chicago should completely hide the sun in the city of Boston. In the present state of Vesuvius, the cone may be said to be in slight, almost continuous eruption. The old central valley which existed before the eruption of 79, and continued to be distinct for long after that time, has been filled up by a smaller cone, bearing a relatively tiny crater of vent, the original wall being visible only on the eastern and northern parts of its circuit, and here only with much diminished height. On the western face the slope from the base of the mountain to the summit of the new cone is almost continuous, though the trained eye can trace the outline of Monte Somma—its position in a kind of bench, which is traceable on that side of the long slope leading from the summit of the new cone to the sea. The fact that the lavas of Vesuvius have broken out on the southwestern side, while the old wall of the cone has remained unbroken on the eastern versant, has a curious explanation. The prevailing wind of Naples is from the southwest, being the strong counter trades which belong in that latitude. In the old days when the Monte Somma cone was constructed these winds caused the larger part of the ashes to fall on the leeward side of the cone, thus forming a thicker and higher wall around that part of the crater.

From the nature of the recent eruptions of Vesuvius it appears likely that the mountain is about to enter on a second period of inaction. The pipes leading through the new cone are small, and the mass of this elevation constitutes a great plug, closing the old crater mouth. To give vent to a large discharge of steam, the whole of this great mass, having a depth of nearly two thousand feet, would have to be blown away. It seems most likely that when the occasion for such a discharge comes, the vapours of the eruption will seek a vent through some other of the many volcanic openings which lie to the westward of this great cone. The history of these lesser volcanoes points to the conclusion that when the path by way of Vesuvius is obstructed they may give relief to the steam which is forcing its course to the surface. Two or three times since the eruption of Pliny, during periods when Vesuvius had long been quiet, outbreaks have taken place on Ischia or in the Phlaegraen Fields, a region dotted with small craters which lies to the west of Naples. The last of these occurred in 1552, and led to the formation of the beautiful little cone known as Monte Nuovo. This eruption took place near the town of Puzzuoli, a place which was then the seat of a university, the people of which have left us records of the accident.



The outbreak which formed Monte Nuovo was slight but very characteristic. It occurred in and beside a circular pool known as the Lucrine Lake, itself an ancient crater. At the beginning of the disturbance the ground opened in ragged cavities, from which mud and ashes and great fragments of hard rock were hurled high in the air, some of the stones ascending to a height of several thousand feet. With slight intermissions this outbreak continued for some days, resulting in the formation of a hill about five hundred feet high, with a crater in its top, the bottom of which lay near the level of the sea. Although this volcanic elevation, being made altogether of loose fragments, is rapidly wearing down, while the crater is filling up, it remains a beautiful object in the landscape, and is also noteworthy for the fact that it is the only structure of this nature which we know from its beginning. In the Phlaegraen Field there are a number of other craters of small size, with very low cones about them. These appear to have been the product of brief, slight eruptions. That known as the Solfatara, though not in eruption during the historic period, is interesting for the fact that from the crevices of the rocks about it there comes forth a continued efflux of carbonic-acid gas. This substance probably arises from the effect of heat contained in old lavas which are in contact with limestone in the deep under-earth. We know such limestones are covered by the lavas of Vesuvius, for the reason that numerous blocks of the rock are thrown out during eruptions, and are often found embedded in the lava streams. It is an interesting fact that these craters of the Phlaegraen Field, lying between the seats of vigorous eruption on Ischia and at Vesuvius, have never been in vigorous eruption. Their slight outbreaks seem to indicate that they have no permanent connection with the sources whence those stronger vents obtain their supply of heated steam.

The facts disclosed by the study of the Vesuvian system of volcanoes afford the geologist a basis for many interesting conclusions.

In the first place, he notes that the greater part of the cones, all those of small size, are made up of finely divided rock, which may have been more or less cemented by the processes of change which go on within it. It is thus clear that the lava flows are unessential—indeed, we may say accidental—contributions to the mass. In the case of Vesuvius they certainly do not amount to as much as one tenth of the elevation due to the volcanic action. The share of the lava in Vesuvius is probably greater than the average, for during the last six centuries this vent has been remarkably lavigerous.[8] Observation on the volcanoes of other districts show that the Vesuvian group is in this regard not peculiar. Of nearly two hundred cones which the writer has examined, not more than one tenth disclose distinct lavas.

[Footnote 8: I venture to use this word in place of the phrase "lava-yielding" for the reason that the term is needed in the description of volcanoes.]

An inspection of the old inner wall of Monte Somma in that portion where it is best preserved, on the north side of the Atria del Cavallo, or Horse Gulch—so called for the reason that those who ascended Vesuvius were accustomed to leave their saddle animals there—we perceive that the body of the old cone is to a considerable extent interlaced with dikes or fissures which have been filled with molten lava that has cooled in its place. It is evident that during the throes of an eruption, when the lava stands high in the crater, these rents are frequently formed, to be filled by the fluid rock. In fact, lava discharges, though they may afterward course for long distances in the open air, generally break their way underground through the cindery cone, and first are disclosed at the distance of a mile or more from the inner walls of the crater. Their path is probably formed by riftings in the compacted ashes, such as we trace on the steep sides of the Atria del Cavallo, as before noted. For the further history of these fissures, we shall have to refer to facts which are better exhibited in the cone of AEtna.

The amount of rock matter which has been thrown forth from the volcanoes about the Bay of Naples is very great. Only a portion of it remains in the region around these cones; by far the greater part has been washed or blown away. After each considerable eruption a wide field is coated with ashes, so that the tilled grounds appear as if entirely sterilized; but in a short time the matter in good part disappears, a portion of it decays and is leached away, and the most of the remainder washes into the sea. Only the showers, which accumulate a deep layer, are apt to be retained on the surface of the country. A great deal of this powdered rock drifts away in the wind, sometimes in great quantities, as in those cases where it darkened the sky more than a thousand miles from the cone. Moreover, the water of the steam which brought about the discharges and the other gases which accompanied the vapour have left no traces of their presence, except in the deep channels which the rain of the condensing steam have formed on the hillsides. Nevertheless, after all these subtractions are made, the quantity of volcanic matter remaining on the surface about the Bay of Naples would, if evenly distributed, form a layer several hundred feet in thickness—perhaps, indeed, a thousand feet in depth—over the territory in which the vents occur. All this matter has been taken in relatively recent times from the depths of the earth. The surprising fact is that no considerable and, indeed, no permanent subsidence of the surface has attended this excavation. We can not believe that this withdrawal of material from the under-earth has resulted in the formation of open underground spaces. We know full well that any such, if it were of considerable size, would quickly be crushed in by the weight of the overlying rocks. We have, indeed, to suppose that these steam-impelled lavas, which are driven toward the vent whence they are to go forth in the state of dust or fluid, come underground from distances away, probably from beneath the floors of the sea to the westward.

Although the shores of the Bay of Naples have remained in general with unchanged elevation for about two thousand years, they have here and there been subjected to slight oscillations which are most likely connected with the movement of volcanic matter toward the vents where it is to find escape. The most interesting evidence of this nature is afforded by the studies which have been made on the ruins of the Temple of Serapis at Puzzuoli. This edifice was constructed in pre-Christian times for the worship of the Egyptian god Serapis, whose intervention was sought by sick people. The fact that this divinity of the Nile found a residence in this region shows how intimate was the relation between Rome and Egypt in this ancient day. The Serapeium was built on the edge of the sea, just above its level. When in modern days it began to be studied, its floor was about on its original level, but the few standing columns of the edifice afford indubitable evidence that this part of the shore has been lowered to the amount of twenty feet or more and then re-elevated. The subsidence is proved by the fact that the upper part of the columns which were not protected by the debris accumulated about them have been bored by certain shellfish, known as Lithodomi, which have the habit of excavating shelters in soft stone, such as these marble columns afford. At present the floor on which the ruin stands appears to be gradually sinking, though the rate of movement is very slow.

Another evidence that the ejections may travel for a great distance underground on their way to the vent is afforded by the fact that Vesuvius and AEtna, though near three hundred miles apart, appear to exchange activities—that is, their periods of outbreak are not simultaneous. Although these elements of the chronology of the two cones may be accidental, taken with similar facts derived from other fields, they appear to indicate that vents, though far separated from each other, may, so to speak, be fed from a common subterranean source. It is a singular fact in this connection that the volcano of Stromboli, though situated between these two cones, is in a state of almost incessant activity. This probably indicates that the last-named vent derives its vapours from another level in the earth than the greater cones. In this regard volcanoes probably behave like springs, of which, indeed, they may be regarded as a group. The reader is doubtless aware that hot and cold springs often escape very near together, the difference in the temperature being due to the depth from which their waters come forth.

As the accidents of volcanic explosion are of a nature to be very damaging to man, as well as to the lower orders of Nature, it is fit that we should note in general the effect of the Neapolitan eruptions on the history of civilization in that region. As stated above, the first Greek settlements in this vicinity—those on the island of Ischia—were much disturbed by volcanic outbreaks, yet the island became the seat of a permanent and prosperous colony. The great eruption of 79 probably cost many hundred lives, and led to the abandonment of two considerable cities, which, however, could at small cost have been recovered to use. Since that day various eruptions have temporarily desolated portions of the territory, but only in very small fields have the ravages been irremediable. Where the ground was covered with dust, it has in most places been again tillable, and so rapid is the decay of the lavas that in a century after their flow has ceased vines can in most cases be planted on their surfaces. The city of Naples, which lies amid the vents, though not immediately in contact with any of them, has steadfastly grown and prospered from the pre-Christian times. It is doubtful if any lives have ever been lost in the city in consequence of an eruption, and no great inconvenience has been experienced from them. Now and then, after a great ash shower, the volcanic dust has to be removed, but the labour is less serious than that imposed on many northern cities by a snowstorm. Through all these convulsions the tillage of the district has been maintained. It has ever been the seat of as rich and profitable a husbandry as is afforded by any part of Italy. In fact, the ash showers, as they import fine divided rock very rich in substances necessary for the growth of plants, have in a measure served to maintain the fertility of the soil, and by this action have in some degree compensated for the injury which they occasionally inflict. Comparing the ravages of the eruptions with those inflicted by war, unnecessary disease, or even bad politics, and we see that these natural accidents have been most merciful to man. Many a tyrant has caused more suffering and death than has been inflicted by these rude operations of Nature.

From the point of view of the naturalist, AEtna is vastly more interesting than Vesuvius. The bulk of the cone is more than twenty times as great as that of the Neapolitan volcano, and the magnitude of its explosions, as well as the range of phenomena which they exhibit, incomparably greater. It happens, however, that while human history of the recorded kind has been intimately bound up with the tiny Vesuvian cone, partly because the relatively slight nature of its disturbances permitted men to dwell beside it, the larger AEtna has expelled culture from the field near its vent, and has done the greater part of its work in the vast solitude which it has created.[9]

[Footnote 9: In part the excellent record of Vesuvius is due to the fact that since the early Christian centuries the priests of St. Januarius, the patron of Naples, have been accustomed to carry his relics in procession whenever an eruption began. The cessation of the outbreak has been written down to the credit of the saint, and thus we are provided with a long story of the successive outbreaks.]

AEtna has been in frequent eruption for a very much longer time than Vesuvius. In the odes of Pindar, in the sixth century before Christ, we find records of eruptions. It is said also that the philosopher Empedocles sought fame and death by casting himself into the fiery crater. There has thus in the case of this mountain been no such long period of repose as occurred in Vesuvius. Though our records of the outbreaks are exceedingly imperfect, they serve to show that the vent has maintained its activity much more continuously than is ordinarily the case with volcanoes. AEtna is characteristically a lava-yielding cone; though the amount of dust put forth is large, the ratio of the fluid rock which flows away from the crater is very much greater than at Vesuvius. Nearly half the cone, indeed, may be composed of this material. Our space does not permit anything like a consecutive story of the AEtnean eruptions since the dawn of history, or even a full account of its majestic cone; we can only note certain features of a particularly instructive nature which have been remarked by the many able men who have studied this structure and the effects of its outbreak.

The most important feature exhibited by AEtna is the vast size of its cone. At its apex its height, though variable from the frequent destruction and rebuilding of the crater walls, may be reckoned as about eleven thousand feet. The base on which the volcanic material lies is probably less than a thousand feet above the sea, so that the maximum thickness of the heap of volcanic ejections is probably about two miles. The average depth of this coating is probably about five thousand feet, and, as the cone has an average diameter of about thirty miles, we may conclude that the cone now contains about a thousand cubic miles of volcanic materials. Great as is this mass, it is only a small part of the ejected material which has gone forth from the vent. All the matter which in its vaporous state went forth with the eruption, the other gases and vapours thus discharged, have disappeared. So, too, a large part of the ash and much of the lava has been swept away by the streams which drain the region, and which in times of eruption are greatly swollen by the accompanying torrential rains. The writer has estimated that if all the emanations from the volcano—solid, fluid, and gaseous—could be heaped on the cone, they would form a mass of between two and three thousand cubic miles in contents. Yet notwithstanding this enormous outputting of earthy matter, the earth on which the AEtnean cone has been constructed has not only failed to sink down, but has been in process of continuous, slow uprising, which has lifted the surface more than a thousand feet above the level which it had at the time when volcanic action began in this field. Here, even more clearly than in the case of Vesuvius, we see that the materials driven forth from the crater are derived not from just beneath its foundation, but from a distance, from realms which in the case of this insular volcano are beneath the sea floors. It is certain that here the migration of rock matter, impelled by the expansion of its contained water toward the vent, has so far exceeded that which has been discharged through the crater that an uprising of the surface such as we have observed has been brought about.



There are certain peculiarities of Mount AEtna which are due in part to its great size and in part to the climatal conditions of the region in which it lies. The upper part of the mountain in winter is deeply snow-clad; the frozen water often, indeed, forms great drifts in the gorges near the summit. Here it has occasionally happened that a layer of ashes has deeply buried the mass, so that it has been preserved for years, becoming gradually more inclosed by the subsequent eruptions. At one point where this compact snow—which has, indeed, taken on the form of ice—has been revealed to view, it has been quarried and conveyed to the towns upon the seacoast. It is likely that there are many such masses of ice inclosed between the ash layers in the upper part of the mountain, where, owing to the height, the climate is very cold. This curious fact shows how perfect a non-conductor the ash beds of a volcano are to protect the frozen water from the heat of the rocks about the crater.

The furious rains which beset the mountain in times of great eruptions excavate deep channels on its sides. The lava outbreaks which attend almost every eruption, and which descend from the base of the cinder cone at the height of from five to eight thousand feet above the sea, naturally find their way into these channels, where they course in the manner of rivers until the lower and less valleyed section of the cone is reached.

Such a lava flow naturally begins to freeze on the surface, the lava at first becoming viscid, much in the manner of cream on the surface of milk. Urged along by the more fluid lava underneath, this viscid coating takes a ropy or corrugated form. As the freezing goes deeper, a firm stone roof may be formed across the gorge, which, when the current of lava ceases to flow from the crater, permits the lower part of the stream to drain away, leaving a long cavern or scries of caves extending far up the cone. The nature of this action is exactly comparable to that which we may observe when on a frosty morning after rain we may find the empty channels which were occupied by rills of water roofed over with ice; the ice roofs are temporary, while those of lava may endure for ages. Some of these lava-stream caves have been disclosed, in the manner of ordinary caverns, by the falling of their roofs; but the greater part are naturally hidden beneath the ever-increasing materials of the cone.

The lava-stream caves of AEtna are not only interesting because of their peculiarities of form, which we shall not undertake to describe, but also for the reason that they help us to account for a very peculiar feature in the history of the great cone. On the slopes of the volcano, below the upper cindery portion, there are several hundred lesser cones, varying from a few score to seven hundred feet in height. Each of these has its appropriate crater, and has evidently been the seat of one or more eruptions. As the greater part of these cones are ancient, many of them being almost effaced by the rain or buried beneath the ejections which have surrounded their bases since the time they were formed, we are led to believe that many thousands of them have been formed during the history of the volcano. The history of these subsidiary cones appears to be connected with the lava caves noted above. These caverns, owing to the irregularities of their form, contain water. They are, in fact, natural cisterns, where the abundant rainfall of the mountain finds here and there storage. When, during the throes of an eruption, dikes such as we know often to penetrate the mountain, are riven outward from the crater through the mass of the cone, and filled with lava, the heated rock must often come in contact with these masses of buried water. The result of this would inevitably be the local generation of steam at a high temperature, which would force its way out in a brief but vigorous eruption, such as has been observed to take place when these peripheral volcanoes are formed. Sometimes it has happened that after the explosion the lava has found its way in a stream from the fissure thus opened. That this explanation is sufficient is in a measure shown by observations on certain effects of lava flows from Vesuvius. The writer was informed by a very judicious observer, a resident of Naples, who had interested himself in the phenomena of that volcano, that the lava streams when they penetrated a cistern, such as they often encounter in passing over villages or farmsteads, vaporized the water, and gave rise, through the action of the steam, to small temporary cones, which, though generally washed away by the further flow of the liquid rock, are essentially like those which we find on AEtna. Such subsidiary, or, as they are sometimes called, parasitic cones, are known about other volcanoes, but nowhere are they so characteristic as on the flanks of that wonderful volcano.

A very conspicuous feature in the AEtnean cone consists of a great valley known as the Val del Bove, or Bull Hollow, which extends from the base of the modern and ever-changeable cinder cone down the flanks of the older structure to near its base. This valley has steep sides, in places a thousand or more feet high, and has evidently been formed by the down-settling of portions of the cone which were left without support by the withdrawal from beneath them of materials cast forth in a time of explosion. In an eruption this remarkable valley was the seat of a vast water flood, the fluid being cast forth from the crater at the beginning of the explosion. In the mouths of this and other volcanoes, after a long period of repose, great quantities of water, gathering from rains or condensed from the steam which slowly escapes from these openings, often pours like a flood down the sides of the mountains. In the great eruption of Galongoon, in Java, such a mass of water, cast forth by a terrific explosion, mingled with ashes, so that the mass formed a thick mud, was shot forth with such energy that it ravaged an area nearly eighty miles in diameter, destroying the forests and their wild inhabitants, as well as the people who dwelt within the range of the amazing disaster. So powerfully was this water driven from the crater that the districts immediately at the base of the cone were in a manner overshot by the vast stream, and escaped with relatively little injury.

When it comes forth from the base of the cinder cone, or from one of the small peripheral craters, the lava stream usually appears to be white hot, and to flow with almost the ease of water. It does not really have that measure of fluidity; its condition is rather that of thin paste; but the great weight of the material—near two and a half times that of water—causes the movement down the slope to be speedy. The central portion of the lava stream long retains its high temperature; but the surface, cooling, is first converted into a tough sheet, which, though it may bend, can hardly be said to flow. Further hardening converts these outlying portions of the current into hard, glassy stone, which is broken into fragments in a way resembling the ice on the surface of a river. It thus comes about that the advancing front of the lava stream becomes covered, and its motion hindered by the frozen rock, until the rate of ongoing may not exceed a few feet an hour, and the appearance is that of a heap of stone slowly rolling down a slope. Now and then a crevice is formed, through which a thin stream of liquid lava pours forth, but the material, having already parted with much of its heat, rapidly cools, and in turn becomes covered with the coating of frozen fragments. In this state of the stream the lava flow stands on all sides high above the slope which it is traversing; it is, in fact, walled in by its own solidified parts, though it is urged forward by the contribution which continues to flow in the under arches. In this state of the movement trifling accidents, or even human interference, may direct the current this way or that.

Some of the most interesting chapters in the history of AEtna relate to the efforts of the people to turn these slow-moving streams so that their torrents might flow into wilderness places rather than over the fields and towns. In the great flow of 1669, which menaced the city of Catania, a large place on the seashore to the southeast of the cone, a public-spirited citizen, Senor Papallardo, protecting himself and his servants with clothing made of hides, and with large shields, set forth armed with great hooks with the purpose of diverting the course of the lava mass. He succeeded in pulling away the stones on the flank of the stream, so that a flow of the molten rock was turned in another direction. The expedient would probably have been successful if he had been allowed to continue his labours; but the inhabitants of a neighbouring village, which was threatened by the off-shooting current which Papallardo had created, took up arms and drove him and his retainers away. The flow continued until it reached Catania. The people made haste to build the city walls on the side of danger higher than it was before, but the tide mounted over its summit.

Although the lavas which come forth from the volcano evidently have a high temperature, their capacity for melting other rocks is relatively small. They scour these rocks, because of their weight, even more energetically than do powerful torrents of water, but they are relatively ineffective in melting stone. On AEtna and elsewhere we may often observe lavas which have flowed through forests. When the tide of molten rock has passed by, the trees may be found charred but not entirely burned away; even stems a few inches in diameter retain strength enough to uphold considerable fringes and clots of the lava which has clung to them. These facts bear out the conclusion that the fluidity of the heated stone depends in considerable measure on the water which is contained, either in its fluid or vaporous state, between the particles of the material.

If we consider the Italian volcanoes as a whole, we find that they lie in a long, discontinuous line extending from the northern part of the valley of the Po, within sight of the Alps, to AEtna, and in subterranean cones perhaps to the northern coast of Africa. At the northern end of the line we have a beautiful group of extinct volcanoes, known as the Eugean Mountains. Thence southward to southern Tuscany craters are wanting, but there is evidence of fissures in the earth which give forth thermal waters. From southern Tuscany southward through Rome to Naples there are many extinct craters, none of which have been active in the historic period. From Naples southward the cones of this system, about a dozen in number, are on islands or close to the margin of the sea. It is a noteworthy fact that the greater part of these shore or insular vents have been active since the dawn of history; several of them frequently and furiously so, while none of those occupying an inland position have been the seat of explosions. This is a striking instance going to show the relation of these processes to conditions which are brought about on the sea bottom.

AEtna is, as we have noticed, a much more powerful volcano than Vesuvius. Its outbreaks are more vigorous, its emanations vastly greater in volume, and the mass of its constructions many times as great as those accumulated in any other European cone. There are, however, a number of volcanoes in the world which in certain features surpass AEtna as much as that crater does Vesuvius. Of these we shall consider but two—Skaptar Jokul, of Iceland, remarkable for the volume of its lava flow, and Krakatoa, an island volcano between Java and Sumatra, which was the seat of the greatest explosion of which we have any record.

The whole of Iceland may be regarded as a volcanic mass composed mainly of lavas and ashes which have been thrown up by a group of volcanoes lying near the northern end of the long igneous axis which extends through the centre of the Atlantic. The island has been the seat of numerous eruptions; in fact, since its settlement by the Northmen in 1070 its sturdy inhabitants have been almost as much distressed by the calamities which have come from the internal heat as they have been by the enduring external cold. They have, indeed, been between frost and fire. The greatest recorded eruption of Iceland occurred in 1783, when the volcano of Skaptar, near the southern border of the island, poured forth, first, a vast discharge of dust and ashes, and afterward in the languid state of eruption inundated a series of valleys with the greatest lava flow of which we have any written record. The dust poured forth into the upper air, being finely divided and in enormous quantity, floated in the air for months, giving a dusky hue to the skies of Europe, which led the common people and many of the learned to fear that the wrath of God was upon them, and that the day of judgment was at hand. Even the poet Cowper, a man of high culture and education, shared in this unreasonable view.

The lava flow in this eruption filled one of the considerable valleys of the island, drying up the river, and inundating the plains on either side. Estimates which have been made as to the volume of this flow appear to indicate that it may have amounted to more than the bulk of the Mont Blanc.

This great eruption, by the direct effect of the calamity, and by the famine due to the ravaging of the fields and the frightening of the fish from the shores which it induced, destroyed nearly one fifth of the Icelandic people. It is, in fact, to be remembered as one of the three or four most calamitous eruptions of which we have any account, and, from the point of view of lava flow, the greatest in history.

Just a hundred years after the great Skaptar eruption, which darkened the skies of Europe, the island of Krakatoa, an isle formed by a small volcano in the straits of Java, was the seat of a vapour explosion which from its intensity is not only unparalleled, but almost unapproached in all accounts of such disturbances. Krakatoa had long been recognised as a volcanic isle; it is doubtful, however, if it had ever been seen in eruption during the three centuries or more since European ships began to sail by it until the month of May of the year above mentioned. Then an outbreak of what may be called ordinary violence took place, which after a few days so far ceased that observers landed and took account of the changes which the convulsion had brought about. For about three months there were no further signs of activity, but on the 29th of August a succession of vast explosions took place, which blew away a great part of the island, forming in its place a submarine crater two or three miles in diameter, creating world-wide disturbances of sea and air. The sounds of the outbreak were heard at a distance of sixteen hundred miles away. The waves of the air attendant on the explosion ran round the earth at least once, as was distinctly indicated by the self-recording barometers; it is possible, indeed, that, crossing each other in their east and west courses, these atmospheric tides twice girdled the sphere. In effect, the air over the crater was heaved up to the height of some tens of thousands of feet, and thence rolled off in great circular waves, such as may be observed in a pan of milk when a sharp blow pushes the bottom upward.

The violent stroke delivered to the waters of the sea created a vast wave, which in the region where it originated rolled upon the shores with a surf wall fifty or more feet high. In a few minutes about thirty thousand people were overwhelmed. The wave rolled on beyond its destructive limits much in the manner of the tide; its influence was felt in a sharp rise and fall of the waters as far as the Pacific coast of North America, and was indicated by the tide gauges in the Atlantic as far north as the coast of Europe.

Owing to the violence of the eruption, Krakatoa poured forth no lava, but the dust and ashes which ascended into the air—or, in other words, the finely divided lava which escaped into the atmosphere—probably amounted in bulk to more than twenty cubic miles. The coarser part of this material, including much pumice, fell upon the seas in the vicinity, where, owing to its lightness, it was free to drift in the marine currents far and wide throughout the oceanic realm. The finer particles, thrown high into the air, perhaps to the height of nearly a hundred thousand feet—certainly to the elevation of more than half this amount—drifted far and wide in the atmosphere, so that for years the air of all regions was clouded by it, the sunrise and sunset having a peculiar red glow, which the dust particles produce by the light which they reflect. In this period, at all times when the day was clear, the sun appeared to be surrounded by a dusky halo. In time the greater part of this dust was drawn down by gravity, some portion of it probably falling on every square foot of the earth. Since the disappearance of the characteristic phenomena which it produced in the atmosphere, European observers have noted the existence of faint clouds lying in the upper part of the air at the height of a hundred miles or more above the surface. These clouds, which were at first distinctly visible in the earliest stage of dawn and in the latest period of the sunset glow, seemed to be in rapid motion to the eastward, and to be mounting higher above the earth. It has been not unreasonably supposed that these shining clouds represent portions of the finest dust from Krakatoa, which has been thrown so far above the earth's attraction that it is separating itself from the sphere. If this view be correct, it seems likely that we may look to great volcanic explosions as a source whence the dustlike particles which people the celestial spaces may have come. They may, in a word, be due to volcanic explosions occurring on this and other celestial spheres.

The question suggested above as to the possibility of volcanic ejections throwing matter from the earth beyond the control of its gravitative energy is one of great scientific interest. Computations (not altogether trustworthy) show that a body leaving the earth's surface under the conditions of a cannon ball fired vertically upward would have to possess a velocity at the start of at least seven miles a second in order to go free into space. It would at first sight seem that we should be able to reckon whether volcanoes can propel earth matter upward with this speed. In fact, however, sufficient data are not obtainable; we only know in a general way that the column of vapour rises to the height of thirty or forty thousand feet, and this in eruptions of no great magnitude. In an accident such as that at Krakatoa, even if an observer were near enough to see clearly what was going on, the chance of his surviving the disturbance would be small. Moreover, the ascending vapours, owing to their expansion of the steam in the column, begin to fly out sideways on its periphery, so that the upper part of the central section in the discharge is not visible from the earth.

It is in the central section of the uprushing mass, if anywhere, that the dust might attain the height necessary to put it beyond the earth's attraction, bringing it fairly into the realm of the solar system, or to the position where its own motion and the attraction of the other spheres would give it an independent orbital movement about the sun, or perhaps about the earth. We can only say that observations on the height of volcanic ejections are extremely desirable; they can probably only be made from a balloon. An ascension thus made beyond the cloud disk which the eruption produces might bring the observer where he could discern enough to determine the matter. Although the movements of the rocky particles could not be observed, the colour which they would give to the heavens might tell the story which we wish to know. There is evidence that large masses of stone hurled up by volcanic eruption have fallen seven miles from the base of the cone. Assuming that the masses went straight upward at the beginning of their ascent, and that they were afterward borne outwardly by the expansion of the column, computations which have a general but no absolute value appear to indicate that the masses attained a height of from thirty to fifty miles, and had an initial velocity which, if doubled, might have carried them into space.

Last of all, we shall note the conditions which attend the eruptions of submarine volcanoes. Such explosions have been observed in but a few instances, and only in those cases where there is reason to believe that the crater at the time of its explosion had attained to within a few hundred feet of the sea level. In these cases the ejections, never as yet observed in the state of lava, but in the condition of dust and pumice, have occasionally formed a low island, which has shortly been washed away by the waves. Knowing as we do that volcanoes abound on the sea floor, the question why we do not oftener see their explosions disturbing the surface of the waters is very interesting, but not as yet clearly explicable. It is possible, however, that a volcanic discharge taking place at the depth of several thousand feet below the surface of the water would not be able to blow the fluid aside so as to open a pipe to the surface, but would expend its energy in a hidden manner near the ocean floor. The vapours would have to expand gradually, as they do in passing up through the rock pipe of a volcano, and in their slow upward passage might be absorbed by the water. The solid materials thrown forth would in this case necessarily fall close about the vent, and create a very steep cone, such, indeed, as we find indicated by the soundings off certain volcanic islands which appear only recently to have overtopped the level of the waters.

As will be seen, though inadequately from the diagrams of Vesuvius, volcanic cones have a regularity and symmetry of form far exceeding that afforded by the outlines of any other of the earth's features. Where, as is generally the case, the shape of the cone is determined by the distribution of the falling cinders or divided lava which constitutes the mass of most cones, the slope is in general that known as a catenary curve—i.e., the line formed by a chain hanging between two points at some distance from the vertical. It is interesting to note that this graceful outline is a reflection or consequence of the curve described by the uprushing vapour. The expansion in the ascending column causes it to enlarge at a somewhat steadfast rate, while the speed of the ascent is ever diminishing. Precisely the same action can be seen in the like rush of steam and other gases and vapours from the cannon's mouth; only in the case of the gun, even of the greatest size, we can not trace the movement for more than a few hundred feet. In this column of ejection the outward movement from the centre carries the bits of lava outwardly from the centre of the shaft, so that when they lose their ascending velocity they are drawn downward upon the flanks of the cone, the amount falling upon each part of that surface being in a general way proportional to the thickness of the vaporous mass from which they descend. The result is, that the thickest part of the ash heap is formed on the upper part of the crater, from which point the deposit fades away in depth in every direction. In a certain measure the concentration toward the centre of the cone is brought about by the draught of air which moves in toward the ascending column.

Although, in general, ejections of volcanic matter take place through cones, that being the inevitable form produced by the escaping steam, very extensive outpourings of lava, ejections which in mass probably far exceed those thrown forth through ordinary craters, are occasionally poured out through fissures in the earth's crust. Thus in Oregon, Idaho, and Washington, in eastern Europe, in southern India, and at some other points, vast flows, which apparently took place from fissures, have inundated great realms with lava ejections. The conditions which appear to bring about these fissure eruptions of lava are not yet well understood. A provisional and very probable account of the action can be had in the hypothesis which will now be set forth.

Where any region has been for a long time the seat of volcanic action, it is probable that a large amount of rock in a more or less fluid condition exists beneath its surface. Although the outrushing steam ejects much of this molten material, there are reasons to suppose that a yet greater part lies dormant in the underground spaces. Thus in the case of AEtna we have seen that, though some thousands of miles of rock matter have come forth, the base of the cone has been uplifted, probably by the moving to that region of more or less fluid rock. If now a region thus underlaid by what we may call incipient lavas is subjected to the peculiar compressive actions which lead to mountain-building, we should naturally expect that such soft material would be poured forth, possibly in vast quantities through fault fissures, which are so readily formed in all kinds of rock when subject to irregular and powerful strains, such as are necessarily brought about when rocks are moved in mountain-making. The great eruptions which formed the volcanic table-lands on the west coast of North America appear to have owed the extrusion of their materials to mountain-building actions. This seems to have been the case also in some of those smaller areas where fissure flows occur in Europe. It is likely that this action will explain the greater part of these massive eruptions.

It need not be supposed that the rock beneath these countries, which when forced out became lava, was necessarily in the state of perfect fluidity before it was forced through the fissures. Situated at great depth in the earth, it was under a pressure so great that its particles may have been so brought together that the material was essentially solid, though free to move under the great strains which affected it, and acquiring temperature along with the fluidity which heat induces as it was forced along by the mountain-building pressure. As an illustration of how materials may become highly heated when forced to move particle on particle, it may be well to cite the case in which the iron stringpiece on top of a wooden dam near Holyoke, Mass., was affected when the barrier went away in a flood. The iron stringer, being very well put together, was, it is said, drawn out by the strain until it became sensibly reddened by the motion of its particles, and finally fell hissing into the waters below. A like heating is observable when metal is drawn out in making wire. Thus a mass of imperfectly fluid rock might in a forced journey of a few miles acquire a decided increase of temperature.

Although the most striking volcanic action—all such phenomena, indeed, as commonly receives the name—is exhibited finally on the earth's surface, a great deal of work which belongs in the same group of geological actions is altogether confined to the deep-lying rock, and leads to the formation of dikes which penetrate the strata, but do not rise to the open air. We have already noted the fact that dikes abound in the deeper parts of volcanic cones, though the fissures into which they find their way are seldom riven up to the surface. In the same way beneath the ground in non-volcanic countries we may discover at a great depth in the older, much-changed rock a vast number of these crevices, varying from a few inches to a hundred feet or more in width, which have been filled with lavas, the rock once molten having afterward cooled. In most cases these dikes are disclosed to us through the down-wearing of the earth that has removed the beds into which the dikes did not penetrate, thus disclosing the realm in which the disturbances took place.

Where, as is occasionally the case in deep mines, or on some bare rocky cliff of great height, we can trace a dike in its upward course through a long distance, we find that we can never distinctly discover the lower point of its extension. No one has ever seen in a clear way the point of origin of such an injection. We can, however, often follow it upward to the place where there was no longer a rift into which it could enter. In its upward path the molten matter appears generally to have followed some previously existing fracture, a joint plane or a fault, which generally runs through the rocks on those planes. We can observe evidence that the material was in the state of igneous fluidity by the fact that it has baked the country rocks on either side of the fissure, the amount of baking being in proportion to the width of the dike, and thus to the amount of heat which it could give forth. A dike six inches in diameter will sometimes barely sear its walls, while one a hundred feet in width will often alter the strata for a great distance on either side. In some instances, as in the coal beds near Richmond, Va., dikes occasionally cut through beds of bituminous coal. In these cases we find that the coal has been converted into coke for many feet either side of a considerable injection. The fact that the dike material was molten is still further shown by the occurrence in it of fragments which it has taken up from the walls, and which may have been partly melted, and in most cases have clearly been much heated.

Where dikes extend up through stratified beds which are separated from each other by distinct layers, along which the rock is not firmly bound together, it now and then happens, as noted by Mr. G.K. Gilbert, of the United States Geological Survey, that the lava has forced its way horizontally between these layers, gradually uplifting the overlying mass, which it did not break through, into a dome-shaped elevation. These side flows from dikes are termed laccolites, a word which signifies the pool-like nature of the stony mass which they form between the strata.

In many regions, where the earth has worn down so as to reveal the zone of dikes which was formed at a great depth, the surface of the country is fairly laced with these intrusions. Thus on Cape Ann, a rocky isle on the east coast of Massachusetts, having an area of about twenty square miles, the writer, with the assistance of his colleague, Prof. R.S. Tarr, found about four hundred distinct dikes exhibited on the shore line where the rocks had been swept bare by the waves. If the census of these intrusions could have been extended over the whole island, it would probably have appeared that the total number exceeded five thousand. In other regions square miles can be found where the dikes intercepted by the surface occupy an aggregate area greater than that of the rocks into which they have been intruded.

Now and then, but rarely, the student of dikes finds one where the bordering walls, in place of having the clean-cut appearance which they usually exhibit, has its sides greatly worn away and much melted, as if by the long-continued passage of the igneous fluid through the crevice. Such dikes are usually very wide, and are probably the paths through which lavas found their way to the surface of the earth, pouring forth in a volcanic eruption. In some cases we can trace their relation to ancient volcanic cones which have worn down in all their part which were made up of incoherent materials, so that there remains only the central pipe, which has been preserved from decay by the coherent character of the lava which filled it.

The hypothesis that dikes are driven upward into strata by the pressure of the beds which overlie materials hot and soft enough to be put in motion when a fissure enters them, and that their movement upward through the crevice is accounted for by this pressure, makes certain features of these intrusions comprehensible. Seeing that very long, slender dikes are found penetrating the rock, which could not have had a high temperature, it becomes difficult to understand how the lava could have maintained its fluidity; but on the supposition that it was impelled forward by a strong pressure, and that the energy thus transmitted through it was converted into heat, we discover a means whereby it could have been retained in the liquid condition, even when forced for long distances through very narrow channels. Moreover, this explanation accounts for the fact which has long remained unexplained that dikes, except those formed about volcanic craters, rarely, if ever, rise to the surface.

The materials contained in dikes differ exceedingly in their chemical and mineral character. These variations are due to the differences in Nature of the deposits whence they come, and also in a measure to exchanges which take place between their own substance and that of the rocks between which they are deposited. This process often has importance of an economic kind, for it not infrequently leads to the formation of metalliferous veins or other aggregations of ores, either in the dike itself or in the country rock. The way in which this is brought about may be easily understood by a familiar example. If flesh be placed in water which has the same temperature, no exchange of materials will take place; but if the water be heated, a circulation will be set up, which in time will bring a large part of the soluble matter into the surrounding water. This movement is primarily dependent on differences of temperature, and consequently differences in the quantity of soluble substances which the water seeks to take up. When a dike is injected into cooler rocks, such a slow circulation is induced. The water contained in the interstices of the stone becomes charged with mineral materials, if such exist in positions where it can obtain possession of them, and as cooling goes on, these dissolved materials are deposited in the manner of veins. These veins are generally laid down on the planes of contact between the two kinds of stone, but they may be formed in any other cavities which exist in the neighbourhood. The formation of such veins is often aided by the considerable shrinkage of the lava in the dike, which, when it cools, tends to lose about fifteen per cent of its volume, and is thus likely to leave a crevice next the boundary walls. Ores thus formed afford some of the commonest and often the richest mineral deposits. At Leadville, in Colorado, the great silver-bearing lodes probably were produced in this manner, wherein lavas, either those of dikes or those which flowed in the open air, have come in contact with limestones. The mineral materials originally in the once molten rock or in the limy beds was, we believe, laid down on ancient sea floors in the remains of organic forms, which for their particular uses took the materials from the old sea water. The vein-making action has served to assemble these scattered bits of metal into the aggregation which constitutes a workable deposit. In time, as the rocks wear down, the materials of the veins are again taken into solution and returned to the sea, thence perhaps to tread again the cycle of change.

In certain dikes, and sometimes also, perhaps, in lavas known as basalts, which have flowed on the surface, the rock when cooling, from the shrinkage which then occurs, has broken in a very regular way, forming hexagonal columns which are more or less divided on their length by joints. When worn away by the agencies of decay, especially where the material forms steep cliffs, a highly artificial effect is produced, which is often compared, where cut at right angles to the columns, to pavements, or, where the division is parallel to the columns, to the pipes of an organ.

What we know of dikes inclines us to the opinion that as a whole they represent movements of softened rock where the motion-compelling agent is not mainly the expansion of the contained water which gives rise to volcanic ejection, but rather in large part due to the weight of superincumbent strata setting in motion materials which were somewhat softened, and which tended to creep, as do the clays in deep coal mines. It is evident, however; it is, moreover, quite natural, that dike work is somewhat mingled with that produced by the volcanic forces; but while the line between the two actions is not sharp, the discrimination is important, and occurs with a distinctness rather unusual on the boundary line between two adjacent fields of phenomena.

* * * * *

We have now to consider the general effects of the earth's interior heat so far as that body of temperature tends to drive materials from the depths of the earth to the surface. This group of influences is one of the most important which operates on our sphere; as we shall shortly see, without such action the earth would in time become an unfit theatre for the development of organic life. To perceive the effect of these movements, we must first note that in the great rock-constructing realm of the seas organic life is constantly extracting from the water substances, such as lime, potash, soda, and a host of other substances necessary for the maintenance of high-grade organisms, depositing these materials in the growing strata. Into these beds, which are buried as fast as they form, goes not only these earthy materials, but a great store of the sea water as well. The result would be in course of time a complete withdrawal into the depths of the earth of those substances which play a necessary part in organic development. The earth would become more or less completely waterless on its surface, and the rocks exposed to view would be composed mainly of silica, the material which to a great extent resists solution, and therefore avoids the dissolving which overtakes most other kinds of rocks. Here comes in the machinery of the hot springs, the dikes, and the volcanoes. These agents, operating under the influence of the internal heat of the earth, are constantly engaged in bearing the earthy matter, particularly its precious more solvent parts, back to the surface. The hot springs and volcanoes work swiftly and directly, and return the water, the carbon dioxide, and a host of other vaporizable and soluble and fusible substances to the realm of solar activity, to the living surface zone of the earth. The dikes operate less immediately, but in the end to the same effect. They lift their materials miles above the level where they were originally laid, probably from a zone which is rarely if ever exposed to view, placing them near the surface, where the erosive agents can readily find access to them.

Of the three agents which serve to export earth materials from its depths, volcanoes are doubtless the most important. They send forth the greater part of the water which is expelled from the rocks. Various computations which the writer has made indicate that an ordinary volcano, such as AEtna, in times of most intense explosion, may send forth in the form of steam one fourth of a cubic mile or more of water during each day of its discharge, and in a single great eruption may pour forth several times this quantity. In its history AEtna has probably returned to the atmosphere some hundred cubic miles of water which but for the process would have remained permanently locked up in its rock prison.

The ejection of rock material, though probably on the average less in quantity than the water which escapes, is also of noteworthy importance. The volcanoes of Java and the adjacent isles have, during the last hundred and twenty years, delivered to the seas more earth material than has been carried into those basins by the great rivers. If we could take account of all the volcanic ejections which have occurred in this time, we should doubtless find that the sum of the materials thus cast forth into the oceans was several times as great as that which was delivered from the lands by all the superficial agents which wear them away. Moreover, while the material from the land, except the small part which is in a state of complete solution, all falls close to the shore, the volcanic waste, because of its fine division or because of the blebs of air which its masses contain, may float for many years before it finds its way to the bottom, it may be at the antipodes of the point at which it came from the earth. While thus journeying through the sea the rock matter from the volcanoes is apt to become dissolved in water; it is, indeed, doubtful if any considerable part of that which enters the ocean goes by gravitation to its floor. The greater portion probably enters the state of solution and makes its way thence through the bodies of plants and animals again into the ponderable state.

If an observer could view the earth from the surface of the moon, he would probably each day behold one of these storms which the volcanoes send forth. In the fortnight of darkness, even with the naked eye, it would probably be possible to discern at any time several eruptions, some of which would indicate that the earth's surface was ravaged by great catastrophes. The nearer view of these actions shows us that although locally and in small measure they are harmful to the life of the earth, they are in a large way beneficent.



CHAPTER VIII.

THE SOIL.

The frequent mention which it has been necessary to make of soil phenomena in the preceding chapters shows how intimately this feature in the structure of the earth is blended with all the elements of its physical history. It is now necessary for us to take up the phenomena of soils in a consecutive manner.

The study of any considerable river basin enables us to trace the more important steps which lead to the destructure and renovation of the earth's detrital coating. In such an interpretation we note that everywhere the rocks which were built on the sea bottom, and more or less made over in the great laboratory of the earth's interior, are at the surface, when exposed to the conditions of the atmosphere, in process of being taken to pieces and returned to the sea. This action goes on everywhere; every drop of rain helps it. It is aided by frost, or even by the changes of expansion and contraction which occur in the rocks from variations of heat. The result is that, except where the slopes are steep, the surface is quickly covered with a layer of fragments, all of which are in the process of decay, and ready to afford some food to plants. Even where the rock appears bare, it is generally covered with lichens, which, adhering to it, obtain a share of nutriment from the decayed material which they help to hold on the slope. When they have retained a thin sheet of the debris, mosses and small flowering plants help the work of retaining the detritus. Soon the strong-rooted bushes and trees win a foothold, and by sending their rootlets, which are at first small but rapidly enlarge, into the crevices, they hasten the disruption of the stones.

If the construction of soil goes on upon a steep cliff, the quantity retained on the slope may be small, but at the base we find a talus, composed of the fragments not held by the vegetation, which gradually increases as the cliff wears down, until the original precipice may be quite obliterated beneath a soil slope. At first this process is rapid; it becomes gradually slower and slower as the talus mounts up the cliff and as the cliff loses its steepness, until finally a gentle slope takes the place of the steep.

From the highest points in any river valley to the sea level the broken-up rock, which we term soil, is in process of continuous motion. Everywhere the rain water, flowing over the surface or soaking through the porous mass, is conveying portions of the material which is taken into solution in a speedy manner to the sea. Everywhere the expansion of the soil in freezing, or the movements imposed on it by the growth of roots, by the overturning of trees, or by the innumerable borings and burrowings which animals make in the mass, is through the action of gravitation slowly working down the slope. Every little disturbance of the grains or fragments of the soil which lifts them up causes them when they fall to descend a little way farther toward the sea level. Working toward the streams, the materials of the soil are in time delivered to those flowing waters, and by them urged speedily, though in most cases interruptedly, toward the ocean.

There is another element in the movement of the soils which, though less appreciable, is still of great importance. The agents of decay which produce and remove the detritus, the chemical changes of the bed rock, and the mechanical action which roots apply to them, along with the solutional processes, are constantly lowering the surface of the mass. In this way we can often prove that a soil continuously existing has worked downward through many thousand feet of strata. In this process of downgoing the country on which the layer rests may have greatly changed its form, but the deposit, under favourable conditions, may continue to retain some trace of the materials which it derived from beds which have long since disappeared, their position having been far up in the spaces now occupied by the air. Where the slopes are steep and streams abound, we rarely find detritus which belonged in rock more than a hundred feet above the present surface of the soil. Where, however, as on those isolated table-lands or buttes which abound in certain portions of the Mississippi Valley, as well as in many other countries, we find a patch of soil lying on a nearly level surface, which for geologic ages has not felt the effect of streams, we may discover, commingled in the debris, the harder wreckage derived from the decay of a thousand feet or more of vanished strata.

When we consider the effect of organic life on the processes which go on in the soil, we first note the large fact that the development of all land vegetation depends upon the existence of this detritus—in a word, on the slow movement of the decaying rocky matter from the point where it is disrupted to its field of rest in the depths of the sea. The plants take their food from the portion of this rocky waste which is brought into solution by the waters which penetrate the mass. On the plants the animals feed, and so this vast assemblage of organisms is maintained. Not only does the land life maintain itself on the soil, and give much to the sea, but it serves in various ways to protect this detrital coating from too rapid destruction, and to improve its quality. To see the nature of this work we should visit a region where primeval forests still lie upon the slopes of a hilly region. In the body of such a wood we find next the surface a coating of decayed vegetable matter, made up of the falling leaves, bark, branches, and trunks which are constantly descending to the earth. Ordinarily, this layer is a foot or more in thickness; at the top it is almost altogether composed of vegetable matter; at the bottom it verges into the true soil. An important effect of this decayed vegetation is to restrain the movement of the surface water. Even in the heaviest rains, provided the mass be not frozen, the water is taken into it and delivered in the manner of springs to the larger streams. We can better note the measure of this effect by observing the difference in the ground covered by this primeval forest and that which we find near by which has been converted into tilled fields. With the same degree of rapidity in the flow, the distinct stream channels on the tilled ground are likely to be from twenty to a hundred times in length what they are on the forest bed. The result is that while the brook which drains the forested area maintains a tolerably constant flow of clean water, the other from the tilled ground courses only in times of heavy rain, and then is heavily charged with mud. In the virgin conditions of the soil the downwear is very slow; in its artificial state this wearing goes on so rapidly that the sloping fields are likely to be worn to below the soil level in a few score years.

Not only does the natural coating of vegetation, such as our forests impose upon the country, protect the soil from washing away, but the roots of the larger plants are continually at work in various ways to increase the fertility and depth of the stratum. In the form of slender fibrils these underground branches enter the joints and bed planes of the rock, and there growing they disrupt the materials, giving them a larger surface on which decay may operate. These bits, at first of considerable size, are in turn broken up by the same action. Where the underlying rocks afford nutritious materials, the branches of our tap-rooted trees sometimes find their way ten feet or more below the base of the true soil. Not only do they thus break up the stones, but the nutrition which they obtain in the depths is brought up and deposited in the parts above the ground, as well as in the roots which lie in the true soil, so that when the tree dies it becomes available for other plants. Thus in the forest condition of a country the amount of rock material contributed to the deposit in general so far exceeds that which is taken away to the rivers by the underground water as to insure the deepening of the soil bed to the point where only the strongest roots—those belonging to our tap-rooted trees—can penetrate through it to the bed rocks.

Almost all forests are from time to time visited by winds which uproot the trees. When they are thus rent from the earth, the underground branches often form a disk containing a thick tangle of stones and earth, and having a diameter of ten or fifteen feet. The writer has frequently observed a hundred cubic feet of soil matter, some of it taken from the depth of a yard or more, thus uplifted into the air. In the path of a hurricane or tornado we may sometimes find thousands of acres which have been subjected to this rude overturning—a natural ploughing. As the roots rot away, the debris which they held falls outside of the pit, thus forming a little hillock along the side of the cavity. After a time the thrusting action of other roots and the slow motion of the soil down the slope restore the surface from its hillocky character to its original smoothness; but in many cases the naturalist who has learned to discern with his feet may note these irregularities long after it has been recovered with the forest.

Great as is the effect of plants on the soil, that influence is almost equalled by the action of the animals which have the habit of entering the earth, finding there a temporary abiding place. The number of these ground forms is surprisingly great. It includes, indeed, a host of creatures which are efficient agents in enriching the earth. The species of earthworms, some of which occupy forested districts as well as the fields, have the habit of passing the soil material through their bodies, extracting from the mass such nutriment as it may contain. In this manner the particles of mineral matter become pulverized, and in a measure affected by chemical changes in the bodies of the creatures, and are thus better fitted to afford plant food. Sometimes the amount of the earth which the creatures take in in moving through their burrows and void upon the surface is sufficient to form annually a layer on the surface of the ground having a depth of one twentieth of an inch or more. It thus may well happen that the soil to the depth of two or three feet is completely overturned in the course of a few hundred years. As the particles which the creatures devour are rather small, the tendency is to accumulate the finer portions of the soil near the surface of the earth, where by solution they may contribute to the needs of the lowly plants. It is probably due to the action of these creatures that small relics of ancient men, such as stone tools, are commonly found buried at a considerable depth beneath the earth, and rarely appear upon the surface except where it has been subjected to deep ploughing or to the action of running streams.

Along with the earthworms, the ants labour to overturn the soil; frequently they are the more effective of the two agents. The common species, though they make no permanent hillocks, have been observed by the writer to lay upon the surface each year as much as a quarter of an inch of sand and other fine materials which they have brought up from a considerable depth. In many regions, particularly in those occupied by glacial drift, and pebbly alluvium along the rivers, the effect of this action, like that of earthworms, is to bring to the surface the finer materials, leaving the coarser pebbles in the depths. In this way they have changed the superficial character of the soil over great areas; we may say, indeed, over a large part of the earth, and this in a way which fits it better to serve the needs of the wild plants as well as the uses of the farmer.

Many thousand species of insects, particularly the larger beetles, have the habit of passing their larval state in the under earth. Here they generally excavate burrows, and thus in a way delve the soil. As many of them die before reaching maturity, their store of organic matter is contributed to the mass, and serves to nourish the plants. If the student will carefully examine a section of the earth either in its natural or in its tilled state, he will be surprised to find how numerous the grubs are. They may often be found to the number of a score or more of each cubic foot of material. Many of the species which develop underground come from eggs which have carefully been encased in organic matter before their deposition in the earth. Thus some of the carrion beetles are in the habit of laying their eggs in the bodies of dead birds or field mice, which they then bury to the depth of some inches in the earth. In this way nearly all the small birds and mammals of our woods disappear from view in a few hours after they are dead. Other species make balls from the dung of cattle in which they lay their eggs, afterward rolling the little spheres, it may be for hundreds of feet, to the chambers in the soil which they have previously prepared. In this way a great deal of animal matter is introduced into the earth, and contributes to its fertility.

Many of our small mammals have the habit of making their dwelling places in the soil. Some of them, such as the moles, normally abide in the subterranean realm for all their lives. Others use the excavations as places of retreat. In any case, these excavations serve to move the particles of the soil about, and the materials which the animals drag into the earth, as well as the excrement of the creatures, act to enrich it. This habit of taking food underground is not limited to the mammals; it is common with the ants, and even the earthworms, as noted by Charles Darwin in his wonderful essay on these creatures, are accustomed to drag into their burrows bits of grass and the slender leaves of pines. It is not known what purpose they attain by these actions, but it is sufficiently common somewhat to affect the conditions of the soil.

The result of these complicated works done by animals and plants on the soil is that the material to a considerable depth are constantly being supplied with organic matter, which, along with the mineral material, constitutes that part of the earth which can support vegetation. Experiment will readily show that neither crushed rock nor pure vegetable mould will of itself serve to maintain any but the lowliest vegetation. It requires that the two materials be mixed in order that the earth may yield food for ordinary plants, particularly for those which are of use to man, as crops. On this account all the processes above noted whereby the waste of plant and animal life is carried below the surface are of the utmost importance in the creation and preservation of the soil. It has been found, indeed, in almost all cases, necessary for the farmer to maintain the fertility of his fields to plough-in quantities of such organic waste. By so doing he imitates the work which is effected in virgin soil by natural action. As the process is costly in time and material, it is often neglected or imperfectly done, with the result that the fields rapidly diminish in fertility.

The way in which the buried organic matter acts upon the soil is not yet thoroughly understood. In part it accomplishes the results by the materials which on its decay it contributes to the soil in a state in which they may readily be dissolved and taken up by the roots into their sap; in part, however, it is believed that they better the conditions by affording dwelling places for a host of lowly species, such as the forms which are known as bacteria. The organisms probably aid in the decomposition of the mineral matter, and in the conversion of nitrogen, which abounds in the air or the soil, into nitrates of potash and soda—substances which have a very great value as fertilizers. Some effect is produced by the decay of the foreign matter brought into the soil, which as it passes away leaves channels through which the soil water can more readily pass.

By far the most general and important effect arising from the decay of organic matter in the earth is to be found in the carbon dioxide which is formed as the oxygen of the air combines with the carbon which all organic material contains. As before noted, water thus charged has its capacity for taking other substances into solution vastly increased, and on this solvent action depends in large part the decay of the bed rocks and the solution of materials which are to be appropriated by the plants.

Having now sketched the general conditions which lead to the formation of soils, we must take account of certain important variations in their conditions due to differences in the ways in which they are formed and preserved. These matters are not only of interest to the geologist, but are of the utmost importance to the life of mankind, as well as all the lower creatures which dwell upon the lands. First, we should note that soils are divisible into three great groups, which, though not sharply parted from each other, are sufficiently peculiar for the purposes of classification. Where the earth material has been derived from the rocks which nearly or immediately underlie it, we have a group of soils which may be entitled those of immediate derivation—that is, derived from rocks near by, or from beds which once overlaid the level and have since been decayed away. Next, we have alluvial soils, those composed of materials which have been transported by streams, commonly from a great distance, and laid down on their flood plains. Third, the soils the mineral matters of which have been brought into their position by the action of glaciers; these in a way resemble those formed by rivers, but the materials are generally imperfectly sorted, coarse and fine being mingled together. Last of all, we have the soils due to the accumulation of blown dust or blown sand, which, unlike the others, occupy but a small part of the land surface. It would be possible, indeed, to make yet another division, including those areas which when emerging from the sea were covered with fine, uncemented detritus ready at once to serve the purposes of a soil. Only here and there, and but seldom, do we find soils of this nature.

It is characteristic of soils belonging to the group to which we have given the title of immediate derivation that they have accumulated slowly, that they move very gradually down the slopes on which they lie, and that in all cases they represent, with a part of their mass at least, levels of rock which have disappeared from the region which they occupied. The additions made to their mass are from below, and that mass is constantly shrinking, generally at a pretty rapid rate, by the mineral matter which is dissolved and goes away with the spring water. They also are characteristically thin on steep slopes, thickening toward the base of the incline, where the diminished grade permits the soil to move slowly, and therefore to accumulate.

In alluvial soils we find accumulations which are characterized by growth on their upper surfaces, and by the distant transportation of the materials of which they are composed. In these deposits the outleaching removes vast amounts of the materials, but so long as the floods from time to time visit their surfaces the growth of the deposits is continued. This growth rarely takes place from the waste of the bed rocks on which the alluvium lies. It is characteristic of alluvial soils that they are generally made up of debris derived from fields where the materials have undergone the change which we have noted in the last paragraph; therefore these latter deposits have throughout the character which renders the mineral materials easily dissolved. Moreover, the mass as it is constructed is commonly mingled with a great deal of organic waste, which serves to promote its fertility. On these accounts alluvial grounds, though they vary considerably in fertility, commonly afford the most fruitful fields of any region. They have, moreover, the signal advantage that they often may be refreshed by allowing the flood waters to visit them, an action which but for the interference of man commonly takes place once each year. Thus in the valley of the Nile there are fields which have been giving rich grain harvests probably for more than four thousand years, without any other effective fertilizing than that derived from the mud of the great river.

The group of glaciated soils differs in many ways from either of those mentioned. In it we find the mineral matter to have been broken up, transported, and accumulated without the influence of those conditions which ordinarily serve to mix rock debris with organic matter during the process by which it is broken into bits. When vegetation came to preoccupy the fields made desolate by glacial action, it found in most places more than sufficient material to form soils, but the greater part of the matter was in the condition of pebbles of very hard rock and sand grains, fragments of silex. Fortunately, the broken-up state of this material, by exposing a great surface of the rocky matter to decay, has enabled the plants to convert a portion of the mass into earth fit for the uses of their roots. But as the time which has elapsed since the disappearance of the glaciers is much less than that occupied in the formation of ordinary soil, this decay has in most cases not yet gone very far, so that in a cubic foot of glaciated waste the amount of material available for plants is often only a fraction of that held in the soils of immediate derivation.

In the greater portion of the fields occupied by glacial waste the processes which lead to the introduction of organic matter into the earth have not gone far enough to set in effective work the great laboratory which has to operate in order to give fertile soil. The pebbles hinder the penetration of the roots as well as the movement of insects and other animals. There has not been time enough for the overturning of trees to bring about a certain admixture of vegetable matter with the soil—in a word, the process of soil-making, though the first condition, that of broken-up rock, has been accomplished, is as yet very incomplete. It needs, indeed, care in the introduction of organic matter for its completion.

It is characteristic of glacial soils that they are indefinitely deep. This often is a disadvantageous feature, for the reason that the soil water may pass so far down into the earth that the roots are often deprived of the moisture which they need, and which in ordinary soils is retained near the surface by the hard underlayer. On the other hand, where the glacial waste is made up of pebbles formed from rocks of varied chemical composition, which contain a considerable share of lime, potash, soda, and other substances which are required by plants, the very large surface which they expose to decay provides the soil with a continuous enrichment. In a cubic foot of pebbly glacial earth we often find that the mass offers several hundred times as much surface to the action of decay as is afforded by the underlying solid bed rock from which a soil of immediate derivation has to win its mineral supply. Where the pebbly glacial waste is provided with a mixture of vegetable matter, the process of decay commonly goes forward with considerable rapidity. If the supply of such matter is large, such as may be produced by ploughing in barnyard manure or green crops, the nutritive value of the earth may be brought to a very high point.

It is a familiar experience in regions where glacial soils exist that the earth beneath the swamps when drained is found to be extraordinarily well suited for farming purposes. On inspecting the pebbles from such places, we observe that they are remarkably decayed. Where the masses contain large quantities of feldspar, as is the case in the greater part of our granitic and other crystalline rocks, this material in its decomposition is converted into kaolin or feldspar clay, and gives the stones a peculiar white appearance, which marks the decomposition, and indicates the process by which a great variety of valuable soil ingredients are brought into a state where they may be available for plants.

In certain parts of the glacial areas, particularly in the region near the margin of the ice sheet, where the glacier remained in one position for a considerable time, we find extensive deposits of silicious sand, formed of the materials which settled from the under-ice stream, near where they escaped from the glacial cavern. These kames and sand plains, because of the silicious nature of their materials and the very porous nature of the soil which they afford, are commonly sterile, or at most render a profit to the tiller by dint of exceeding care. Thus in Massachusetts, although the first settlers seized upon these grounds, and planted their villages upon them because the forests there were scanty and the ground free from encumbering boulders, were soon driven to betake themselves to those areas where the drift was less silicious, and where the pebbles afforded a share of clay. Very extensive fields of this sandy nature in southeastern New England have never been brought under tillage. Thus on the island of Martha's Vineyard there is a connected area containing about thirty thousand acres which lies in a very favourable position for tillage, but has been found substantially worthless for such use. The farmers have found it more advantageous to clear away the boulders from the coarser drift in order to win soil which would give them fair returns.

Those areas which are occupied by soil materials which have been brought into their position by the action of the wind may, as regards their character, be divided into two very distinct groups—the dunes and loess deposits. In the former group, where, as we have noted (see page 123), the coarse sea sands or those from the shores of lakes are driven forward as a marching hillock, the grains of the material are almost always silicious. The fragments in the motion are not taken up into the air, but are blown along the surface. Such dune accumulations afford an earth which is even more sterile than that of the glacial sand plains, where there is generally a certain admixture of pebbles from rocks which by their decomposition may afford some elements of fertility. Fortunately for the interests of man, these wind-borne sands occupy but a small area; in North America, in the aggregate, there probably are not more than one thousand square miles of such deposits.

Where the rock material drifted by the winds is so fine that it may rise into the air in the form of dust, the accumulations made of it generally afford a fertile soil, and this for the reason that they are composed of various kinds of rock, and not, as in the case of dunes, of nearly pure silica. In some very rare cases, where the seashore is bordered by coral reefs, as it is in parts of southern Florida, and the strand is made up of limestone bits derived from the hard parts which the polyps secrete, small dunes are made of limy material. Owing, however, in part to the relatively heavy nature of this substance, as well as to the rapid manner in which its grains become cemented together, such limestone dunes never attain great size nor travel any distance from their point of origin.

As before noted, dust accumulations form the soil in extended areas which lie to the leeward of great deserts. Thus a considerable part of western China and much of the United States to the west of the Mississippi is covered by these wind-blown earths. Wherever the rainfall is considerable these loess deposits have proved to have a high agricultural value.

Where a region has an earth which has recently passed from beneath the sea or a great lake, the surface is commonly covered by incoherent detritus which has escaped consolidation into hard rock by the fact that it has not been buried and thus brought into the laboratory of the earth's crust. When such a region becomes dry land, the materials are immediately ready to enter into the state of soil. They commonly contain a good deal of waste derived from the organic life which dwelt upon the sea bottom and was embedded in the strata as they were formed. Where these accumulations are made in a lake, the land vegetation at once possesses the field, even a single year being sufficient for it to effect its establishment. Where the lands emerge from the sea, it requires a few years for the salt water to drain away so that the earth can be fit for the uses of plants. In a general way these sea-bottom soils resemble those formed in the alluvial plains. They are, however, commonly more sandy, and their substances less penetrated by that decay which goes on very freely in the atmosphere because of the abundant supply of oxygen, and but slowly on the sea floor. Moreover, the marine deposits are generally made up in large part of silicious sand, a material which is produced in large quantities by the disruption of the rocks along the sea coast. The largest single field of these ocean-bottom soils of North America is found in the lowland region of the southern United States, a wide belt of country extending along the coast from the Rio Grande to New York. Although the streams have channelled shallow valleys in the beds of this region, the larger part of its surface still has the peculiar features of form and composition which were impressed upon it when it lay below the surface of the sea.