Language of the Earth Edited By Frank H.T. Rhodes, Richard O. Stone and Bruce D. Malamud. © 2008 Blackwell ... 44. Rhodes: Language of the Earth 9781405160674_2_toc Final Proof page iii 14.2.2008 5:17pm ..... of mankind. We have ...
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Language of the Earth Second Edition
EDITED BY FRANK H .T. RHODES, RICHARD O. S TONE AND BRUCE D . MALAMUD
Language of the Earth Edited By Frank H.T. Rhodes, Richard O. Stone and Bruce D. Malamud © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. ISBN: 978-1-4051-6067-4
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Editorial material and organization © 2008 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd BLACKWELL PUBLISHING
350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK 550 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia The right of Frank H.T. Rhodes, Richard O. Stone and Bruce D. Malamud to be identified as the authors of the editorial material in this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks, or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. First published 2008 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd First edition published by Pergamon Press 1981 1 2008 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Language of the earth. – 2nd ed. / edited by Frank H.T. Rhodes, Richard O. Stone and Bruce D. Malamud. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4051-6067-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Geology. 2. Geologists. I. Rhodes, Frank Harold Trevor. II. Stone, Richard O., 1920–1978. III. Malamud, B.D. (Bruce D.) QE26.3.L35 2008 550–dc22 2007045041 ISBN: 978-1-4051-6067-4 (hardback) A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. Set in 10.5/12pt DanteMT by SPi Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed and bound in Singapore by COS Printers Pte Ltd The publisher’s policy is to use permanent paper from mills that operate a sustainable forestry policy, and which has been manufactured from pulp processed using acid-free and elementary chlorine-free practices. Furthermore, the publisher ensures that the text paper and cover board used have met acceptable environmental accreditation standards. For further information on Blackwell Publishing, visit our website at www.blackwellpublishing.com
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Contents
Preface Preface from the first edition Acknowledgments from the first edition
ix xii xv
PART 1:
1
1.
2.
THE EARTH EXPERIENCED
Eyewitness Accounts of Earth Events
3
1-1 John McPhee: Los Angeles Against the Mountains
4
1-2 Gordon Gaskill: The Night the Mountain Fell
6
1-3 R.G. McConnell and R.W. Brock: The Turtle Mountain Slide
11
1-4 Voltaire: Candide
12
1-5 James R. Newman: The Lisbon Earthquake
15
1-6 Mary Austin: The Temblor
18
1-7 Jonathan Weiner: The Alaskan Good Friday Earthquake
21
1-8 Francis P. Shepard: Tsunami
23
1-9 Haroun Tazieff: Not a Very Sensible Place for a Stroll
24
1-10 Fairfax Downey: Last Days of St Pierre
29
1-11 Hans Cloos: Beacons on the Passage Out 1-12 Jon Thorlakson: Eruption of the O¨raefajo¨kull, 1727
32
Exploration
35
38
2-1
Charles Darwin: The Voyage of the Beagle
38
2-2
Simon Winchester: The Map that Changed the World
40
2-3
John Wesley Powell: The Exploration of the Colorado River
42
2-4
William H. Brewer: Mono Lake–Aurora–Sonora Pass
44
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iv
3.
2-5 George F. Sternberg: Thrills in Fossil Hunting
45
2-6 John E. Pfeiffer: The Creative Explosion
47
2-7 George Gaylord Simpson: Attending Marvels: A Patagonian Journal
49
2-8 Robert D. Ballard: Explorations
50
2-9 Louise B. Young: The Blue Planet
53
Geologists are also Human 3-1 Stephen Drury: Stepping Stones
55
3-2 Elizabeth O.B. Gordon: William Buckland
56
3-3 Hugh Miller: The Old Red Sandstone
60
3-4 Sir Archibald Geikie: A Long Life’s Work
64
3-5 Frank H.T. Rhodes: Life, Time, and Darwin
66
3-6
69
R.A. Bartlett: King’s Formative Years
3-7 M.E. David: With Shackleton in the Antarctic
72
3-8
William H. Goetzmann: The Great Diamond Hoax
76
3-9
Foreword by Luna B. Leopold, Paul D. Komar, and Vance Haynes: Sand, Wind, and War
79
3-10 Hans Cloos: Ship’s Wake
4.
Celebrities
81
85
4-1 H. Stommel: Benjamin Franklin and the Gulf Stream
85
4-2 Thomas Clements: Leonardo Da Vinci as a Geologist
87
4-3 R. Magnus: Mineralogy, Geology, Meteorology
89
4-4 E.T. Martin: Megalonyx, Mammoth, and Mother Earth
93
4-5 William A. Stanley: Three Short, Happy Months
96
4-6 W.G. Collingwood: Mountain-Worship
98
4-7 Herbert C. Hoover: Stanford University, 1891–1895
PART 2: 5.
54
INTERPRETING THE EARTH
Philosophy
100
103 105
5-1 James Hutton: Concerning the System of the Earth, its Duration and Stability
106
5-2 T.C. Chamberlin: The Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses
110
5-3 George Gaylord Simpson: Historical Science
113
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6.
7.
8.
5-4
Stephen Jay Gould: What is a Species?
116
5-5
Christine Turner: Messages in Stone
119
5-6
Marcia G. Bjørnerud: Natural Science, Natural Resources, and the Nature of Nature
120
5-7
Ian Stewart: Does God Play Dice?
123
The Fossil Record
126
6-1
Frank H.T. Rhodes: Earth and Man
127
6-2
Donald Culross Peattie: Flowering Earth
129
6-3
Robert Claiborne: Habits and Habitats
134
6-4
James A. Michener: Diplodocus, The Dinosaur
137
6-5
Berton Roueche´: A Window on the Oligocene
141
6-6
Samantha Weinberg: A Fish Caught in Time
143
6-7
Richard E. Leakey: Ape-like Ancestors
145
6-8
Loren Eiseley: The Relic Men
146
Geotectonics
151
7-1
James A. Michener: From the Boundless Deep & the Birth of the Rockies
152
7-2
Anna Grayson: When Pigs Ruled the Earth
155
7-3
David Attenborough: The Living Planet
158
7-4
William Glen: The Road to Jaramillo
161
7-5
J. Tuzo Wilson: Mao’s Almanac: 3,000 Years of Killer Earthquakes
163
7-6
Richard H. Jahns: Geologic Jeopardy
167
Controversies
171
8-1
William Irvine: Apes, Angels, and Victorians
172
8-2
William L. Straus, Jr: The Great Piltdown Hoax
175
8-3
Howard S. Miller: Fossils and Free Enterprisers
179
8-4
Charles Officer and Jake Page: The K-T Extinction
182
8-5
Sir Archibald Geikie: The Founders of Geology
185
8-6
Don E. Wilhelms: To a Rocky Moon
188
8-7
Edward Schreiber and Orson L. Anderson: Properties and Composition of Lunar Materials: Earth Analogies
190
8-8
Joel L. Swerdlow: CFCs
192
Contents
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vi PART 3: 9.
10.
LANGUAGE OF THE EARTH
Prose
195 197
9-1 Isak Dinesen: Out of Africa
197
9-2 T.E. Lawrence: Seven Pillars of Wisdom
200
9-3 Ernest Hemingway: Green Hills of Africa
201
9-4 Antoine de Saint-Exupe´ry: Wind, Sand and Stars
202
9-5 John Fowles: The French Lieutenant’s Woman
204
9-6 John Muir: Trip to the Middle and North Forks of San Joaquin River
207
9-7 Mark Twain: Roughing It
209
9-8 Thomas Fairchild Sherman: A Place on the Glacial Till
211
9-9 John McPhee: Basin and Range
213
9-10 John Darnton: Neanderthal
215
9-11 Kim Stanley Robinson: Antarctica
218
9-12 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: The Lost World
220
Poetry
223
10-1 Sir Archibald Geikie: Landscape and Literature
224
10-2 William Wordsworth: The Excursion
226
10-3 Voltaire: The Lisbon Earthquake
227
10-4 C.S. Rafinesque: The Fountains of the Earth
228
10-5 Timothy A. Conrad: To a Trilobite
229
10-6 A.E. Housman: A Shropshire Lad
230
10-7 Andrew C. Lawson: Mente et Malleo
230
10-8 John Stuart Blackie: Selected Poems
232
10-9 Kenneth Rexroth: Lyell’s Hypothesis Again
233
10-10 A.R. Ammons: Selected Poems
234
10-11 Charles Simic: Stone
236
10-12 J.T. Barbarese: Fossils
236
10-13 Jane Hirshfield: Rock
237
10-14 W. Scott McLean, Eldridge M. Moores, and David A. Robertson: Poetry Matters: Gary Snyder
238
10-15 The Book of Job: Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?
242
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11.
11-1
Jacquetta Hawkes: A Land: Sculpture
245
11-2
Jack Burnham: Beyond Modern Sculpture
247
11-3
Elizabeth C. Childs: Time’s Profile: John Wesley Powell, Art, and Geology at the Grand Canyon
249
11-4
R.A. Bartlett: Thomas Moran: American Landscape Painter
253
11-5
Diane Ackerman: Earth Calling
255
PART 4: 12.
13.
14.
244
Art
THE CROWDED PLANET
Human History
257 259
12-1
John D. Ridge: Minerals and World History
260
12-2
Jacquetta Hawkes: A Land: Architecture
261
12-3
Donald F. Eschman and Melvin G. Marcus: The Geologic and Topographic Setting of Cities
263
12-4
Douglas W. Johnson: Topography and Strategy in the War
266
12-5
John McPhee: Geology and Crime
268
12-6
Kenneth E.F. Watt: Tambora and Krakatau
269
12-7
Lord Ritchie-Calder: Mortgaging the Old Homestead
273
12-8
Harlow Shapley: Breathing the Future and the Past
275
Resources
277
13-1
Rachel L. Carson: Wealth from the Salt Seas
278
13-2
Charles F. Park, Jr: Minerals, People, and the Future
280
13-3
M. Dane Picard: The Bingham Canyon Pit
282
13-4
John G.C.M. Fuller: The Geological Attitude
284
13-5
Michel T. Halbouty: Geology – For Human Needs
286
Benevolent Planet
289
14-1 James Lovelock: Gaia
290
14-2 Fritjof Capra: The Web of Life
291
14-3 Charles Morgan: Remember the Land
292
14-4 Gabriele Kass-Simon: Rachel Carson: The Idea of Environment
293
14-5 Rachel L. Carson: Silent Spring
294
Contents
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Contents
viii 14-6 S. George Philander: Who is El Nin˜o?
295
14-7 National Research Council: Essay on the Earth Sciences
297
14-8 Diane Ackerman: The Round Walls of Home
299
14-9 Ernest Zebrowski, Jr: The Butterfly Effect
301
14-10 Carl Sagan: Pale Blue Dot Sources Names index Subject index
304 305 315 320
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Preface
Every life is a continuing encounter with Earth. Every breath is a transaction with our planet. Every meal is an assimilation of terrestrial products. Every item we use, touch, or manufacture is a piece of Earth. Every element in our bodies, atom for atom, comes from Earth’s crust. Every calorie of energy we use comes directly from Earth, and indirectly from Earth’s parent star, the Sun. We are formed of the dust of the Earth, just as the ancient scripture affirms. But that dust is star dust. We are not only Earth’s children; we are the grandchildren of a star. ‘‘Dust we may be,’’ Maurice Boyd has remarked, ‘‘but the dust of a star, and troubled by dreams.’’ And in those dreams rest our greatness and our hope. This is an anthology, a book of writings about our parent planet, Earth. It is not a book of science, though some writers are scientists. It is not didactic, though we hope it will be instructive. It is not comprehensive, though it covers an expansive range of topics. Our purpose in writing is to inspire interest, rather than to tell the whole story; to whet the appetite, rather than ‘‘provide all the data’’; to ignite the imagination, rather than instruct in detail. Certainly we hope students of Earth science will find the book useful, whether as required supplementary reading in formal courses, or as a diversion from a surfeit of scientific literature. But our intended audience is wider: because we are all Earth’s children, we hope that these reports on the parent planet will be of interest to the general reader and will be read as letters from home. This is a book for browsing, for tasting, for reflecting. These accounts of the home planet, their style and their viewpoints, are as varied as their authors. We hope that by using the form of an anthology, based as it is on the writings of authors of many backgrounds, periods and interests, we can capture a sense of the fascination and mystery of this ancient and beautiful, blue planet. We hope that the reader will catch a glimpse of its contradictory moods: its benevolence and its terror, its resilience and its fragility, its tranquility and its episodic violence, its regularity and its unpredictability. In this respect, the emphasis of the present book differs from that of the first edition. That work was directed chiefly to students of Earth science; this volume, though retaining that goal, is consciously more general in its scope and more expansive in its range of topics. The first edition aimed to provide a context for that particular category of knowledge which we identify as Earth science, to show not only its range and scope, but also its flavor, style and implications; to show all knowledge as provisional, rather than infallible, as refinable rather than complete and finished.
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x Our purpose in the present volume is still to achieve those goals, but also something more. We hope to show not only the intimacy of science with other expression and study, but also to give a sense of the individuality, insight and intuition that underlie all encounters with our parent planet and all descriptions of it. For scientific knowledge is similar to all other knowledge; in spite of its public verifiability, it grows by private insight and personal intuition. ‘‘If you want to know the essence of scientific method,’’ Einstein is said to have remarked, ‘‘don’t listen to what a scientist may tell you. Watch what he does.’’ So this book is a window on the world of people ‘‘doing’’ – not just geologists, but sculptors and soldiers, artists and aviators, politicians and poets, prophets and prospectors, novelists and naturalists. We have greatly expanded the extracts included in the present volume, retaining – we hope – the best of the first edition, but omitting twenty of the original authors, shortening some extracts, and adding another fifty-five. Though we have made a particular effort to include contemporary literature and topics of current interest, we have also tried to achieve a reasonable balance with the older literature. We have added Jane Hirshfield, John McPhee and Carl Sagan, for example, but we have kept William Wordsworth, Voltaire and James Hutton. The thread that gives continuity is their common concern with the Earth. Nor is the span of time and place any less comprehensive than that of occupation. We have deliberately selected writings from the time of the fifth or sixth century BC when the book of Job was written, to the heyday of the Victorian era, when William Buckland fascinated and dominated the Oxford scene; from the medieval ages of wonder in the created universe, to the novels of John Fowles written in the 1970s, to books published in the new millennium. In the most literal sense our extracts involve the comprehension of the whole Earth. Our authors’ accounts range from dripping caves, deep below the Pyrenees, to the deserts of North Africa, from the Alps to the Andes, from mountain tops to the depths of the ocean, from the Antarctic ice sheet to the surface of the moon. Their writings concern both social and scientific topics, as well as personal interests and political goals. All reveal some aspect of our planet in the life of humankind. We have arranged our selections in various categories, in order to give some structure and coherence to the book, and also to allow the reader to use it more selectively. These categories are generally self-evident, but a few articles could have fitted into some other category just as easily as the one in which they stand. Most of the articles that we include are fragments of much longer articles, essays, or books, and even the extracts themselves, we have generally abridged. We regret the need to make these abbreviations, and we have tried very carefully to preserve the sense and style of the original authors. Our reluctance to make the abridgement is exceeded only by our conviction that diversity and variety are of more importance than comprehensive quotation of a smaller number of authors. In the book as it now stands, our task of selection has been painfully difficult; we have collected many outstanding articles for which we have been unable to find space. With each extract, we have retained the essential footnotes and references, though we have shortened or deleted footnotes and references where these did not seem to us essential to the main argument. We hope that our readers will wish to explore the new worlds of information represented in some of the extracts that are included, just as we also hope that they may develop a sufficiently strong taste for some of the present authors to encourage them to explore their other writings. The first edition of this book was planned with Richard Stone, Professor of Geology at the University of Southern California. He and the first editor, Frank Rhodes, worked together from 1972 to 1978, when Richard Stone died from a disease against which he had
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fought with great courage. Frank Rhodes finished work on the book, which was published in 1981. Though the book had been out of print for almost a decade, the third editor, Bruce Malamud, while a PhD student at Cornell discussed the book and found that it occupied a respectable place on a list of the ‘‘Great Books of Geology’’ selected by the readers of the Journal of Geological Education [‘‘Geologists Select Great Books of Geology’’, 1993, vol. 41, p. 26]. It was this that led to his suggestion of a new edition and we are grateful for the decision of Ian Francis of Blackwell Publishing to publish it. Frank Rhodes rewrote and expanded all the introductions and we have worked together on the preparation of the book, supported and helped by several people whose efforts we are anxious to acknowledge: Joy Wagner, John Briggs, Joel Haenlein, and Helen Sullivan have helped us greatly with the typing and editorial work. We are conscious that in aiming at a wider readership, we face a delicate task in balancing the technical and the nontechnical content. In this we have deliberately leaned towards general intelligibility, partly because we are persuaded that such broader contextual understanding and interest are beneficial to the specialist and partly because we believe the substance of this book is of vital concern and significance for the more general reader. If war is too important to be left to the generals, then the understanding and care of the Earth are far too important to be left to the Earth scientists. For each of us – specialist or not – is a custodian of this beautiful planet, which is our home. That is why our response to the issues raised in this book is of more than casual importance. It is, of course, of vital concern as a basis for the vocational skills and technical knowledge required of those pursuing courses and careers in Earth science. But, in a far wider sense, it is an important component in adding to the richness and exuberance of life for all of us. We have attempted to use a concern with the Earth to introduce the reader to a growing range of experiences and involvements ranging from sculpture to literature, and from architecture to history. Through such interests, it is possible to develop a new perspective which enriches the quality of human experience. Our response to the Earth is a factor of profound significance. We share our overcrowded, polluted, plundered planet with more than six billion other members of the human race, as well as a couple of million other species of animals and plants. The next 50 years will call for critical decisions in the problems of conservation, energy policy, urban development, transportation, mineral and water resources, land use, atmospheric protection and utilization of the oceans. The terms of our survival will depend in large part on our careful comprehension of the language of the Earth and our stewardship of this rare planet. Earth’s fitness as a home for humans and other species is the end product of its long and complex history. Soil, air, water, food, fuels, minerals, and microbes are the products of Earth processes acting over incalculable periods, and of the life, activity, and death of countless organisms that have gone before us. Each of us, in our own turn, absorbs, utilizes and recreates this sustaining environment. ‘‘Speak to the Earth, and it shall teach thee,’’ Job was told 25 centuries ago. To those with the patience to master its language, the Earth still responds. To those with the insight to comprehend its moods and reflect on its mysteries, the Earth still teaches. Frank H.T. Rhodes Bruce D. Malamud Cornell University, Ithaca, NY King’s College, London
Preface
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Preface from the first edition
One of the problems with our conventional styles of teaching and conventional patterns of learning at the introductory undergraduate level is that the ‘‘subject’’ – whatever it may be – all too easily emerges as given, frozen, complete, canned. Add to this quizzes, multiple-choice exams, and a single textbook, and the pursuit of knowledge sometimes becomes a kind of catechism – the recital of prepared answers to a limited set of questions (‘‘You lost one point because you missed the hardness of hornblende,’’ or some other equally inconsequential fragment of information). It is against such a limited view of knowledge that students so frequently react, and so they should. But it need not be so. In every department there are still successful teachers who can win the interest and enthusiasm of once uninterested and unenthusiastic students. They do so partly by the example of their own commitment to learning, and partiy by revealing knowledge as a continuing personal quest. For no knowledge, and least of all scientific knowledge, exists as a finished corpus of categorized facts. Knowledge exists because there are people; it is the accumulated personal experience of our race. It becomes meaningful, useful and intelligible as we grasp, not only its content, but also its basis, its implications, its relationship and its limitations. Its coherence and significance lie in its relatedness to the whole of the rest of our human experience. The aim of this book is to provide such a context for the particular category of knowledge which we identify as earth science. Our intention is not didactic. We make no attempt to cover the ground in the sense of describing the current content of each area of earth science. Our aim is to illustrate the scope and range of the science and to convey its flavor and style, rather than catalog its contents; to display all our knowledge as provisional rather than infallible, as refinable rather than complete and finished; to show the inspiration and sweeping implications of earth science, rather than representing it as an isolated area of study. We hope that by using the form of an anthology, based as it is on the writings of authors representing many countries, periods and viewpoints, we can show something of the individuality which lies at the heart of science. The categorization of science as less humane than other areas of human knowledge and as dehumanizing in its effects is a verdict reached too readily by many of our contemporaries. For scientific knowledge, in spite of its public verifiability, grows by private insight and personal intuition. ‘‘If you want to know the essence of scientific method,’’ Einstein is said to have remarked, ‘‘don’t listen to what a scientist may tell you. Watch what he does.’’ So this book is a window on
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the world of people ‘‘doing’’ – not just geologists – but sculptors and soldiers, artists and aviators, politicians and poets, prophets and prospectors, novelists and naturalists. The thread that gives continuity is their common concern with the Earth. Nor is the span of time and place any less comprehensive than that of occupation. We have deliberately selected writings from the time of the 5th or 6th century BC, when the book of Job was written, to the heyday of the Victorian era, when William Buckland fascinated and dominated the Oxford scene; from the medieval ages of wonder in the created universe, to the novels of John Fowles written in the 1970s. In the most literal sense, geology involves the comprehension of the whole Earth. Our authors’ accounts range from dripping caves, deep below the Pyrenees, to the deserts of North Africa, from the Alps to the Andes, from mountain tops to the depths of the ocean, from the Antarctic ice sheet to the surface of the moon. Their writings concern both social and scientific topics, as well as personal and political goals. All reveal some aspect of geology in the life of mankind. We have arranged our selections in various categories, in order to give some structure and coherence to the book, and also to allow the reader to use it more selectively. These categories are generally self-evident, but a few articles could have fitted into some other category just as easily as the one in which they stand. Most of the articles that we include are mere fragments of much longer articles, essays, or books, and even the extracts themselves, we have generally abridged. We regret the need to make these abbreviations, and we have tried very carefully to preserve the sense and style of the original authors. Our reluctance to make the abridgement is exceeded only by our conviction that diversity and variety are of more importance than comprehensive quotation of a smaller number of authors. In the book as it now stands, our task of selection has been painfully difficult; we have collected many outstanding articles for which we have been unable to find space. With each extract, we have retained the essential footnotes and references, though we have shortened or deleted footnotes and references where these were not essential to the main argument. We hope that our readers will wish to explore the new worlds of information represented in some of the references that are quoted, just as we also hope that they may develop a sufficiently strong taste for some of the present authors to encourage them to explore their other writings. We hope that the book will provide useful supplementary reading for those who are enrolled in introductory earth science courses. We see it – not merely as a collection of required readings – but as an anthology for browsing. We hope that the book might even stand by itself, and have some interest for those who, though having no formal concern with courses or teaching in earth science, possess a curiosity about the planet which is our home, and about our varying responses to it. This response is of more than casual importance. It is, of course, of vital concern as a basis for the vocational skills and technical knowledge required of those pursuing courses in earth science. But, in the far wider sense, it is an important component in adding to the richness and exuberance of life. We have attempted to use a concern with the Earth to introduce the reader to a growing range of experiences and involvements ranging from sculpture to literature, and from architecture to history. Through such interests, it is possible to develop a new perspective which enriches the quality of human experience. Our response to the Earth is a factor of profound significance. We share our overcrowded, polluted, plundered planet with 3.5 billion other members of our race. The next
Preface from the first edition
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xiv 30 years will call for critical decisions in the problems of conservation, energy supplies, mineral and water resources, land use, atmospheric protection and utilization of the oceans. The terms of our survival will depend in large part on our careful comprehension of the language of the earth and our stewardship of this rare planet. Earth’s fitness as a home for humans is the end product of its long and elaborate history. Soil, air, and water, food and fuels, minerals and microbes are the products of earth processes acting over incalculable periods, and of the life, activity, and death of countless organisms. Each of us, in his own turn, absorbs, utilizes and recreates this sustaining environment. ‘‘Speak to the Earth, and it shall teach thee,’’ Job was told 25 centuries ago. To those with the patience to master its language, the Earth still responds. To those with the insight to comprehend its moods and reflect on its mysteries, the Earth still teaches. Dick Stone and I began work on this book in 1972. We worked steadily at it, fitting it in as best we could between other pressing commitments. Most of the writing and selection of materials was finished by 1976. Because of increasing publishing costs, we were then faced with the need to reduce the length of the book. This took much longer than either of us had anticipated. Dick Stone became ill with a disease against which he fought with courage and hope, but from which he died on July 23, 1978. I have completed the book, but its essential form and much of its content are as we both planned it. Frank H.T. Rhodes Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
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Acknowledgments from the first edition
I am most grateful to several individuals whose willing cooperation and enthusiastic interest have contributed significantly to the completion of this book. My greatest debt is to my late colleague, Dick Stone, who derived great pleasure from the selection and preparation of material for the book. The breadth of the topics we cover in the book reflects the scope and quality of his own interests. To those authors and publishers who have given permission to reproduce their work, to extract from it and otherwise abridge it, I have a particular debt of gratitude. In some cases, this permission was given without the requirement of payment of copyright fees. All the original sources of information are fully acknowledged. Mrs. Jean Schleede and Mrs. Margaret Gihingham typed earlier versions of the manuscript, while Mrs. Marcia Parks, Mrs. Clara Pierson and Mrs. Joy Wagner assisted in its final preparation. Their careful typing, checking and verification of sources have been especially important, and I am most grateful for their help. Frank H.T. Rhodes
