Читать книгу The Romance of Modern Geology. Describing in simple but exact language the making of the earth with some account of prehistoric animal life онлайн

26 страница из 54

Now let us see how these winds might leave traces in the geological record. When soil is exposed to the sun its surface becomes dust, and the wind carries it off. Even where turf protects the surface, bare places may always be found whence this covering has been removed. Rabbits and moles bring up the earth to the surface; the earthworms sometimes bring as much as ten tons of earth to the surface of a single acre of turf in the course of a year. The earthworms bring up only the finest particles of mould; and these, of course, are the very particles readily converted into dust and borne away by the wind if they are not washed away by rain. In tropical countries the white ant conveys a prodigious amount of fine earth up into the open air, building walls sometimes sixty feet high. Although, therefore, the layer of vegetable soil which covers the land appears to be a permanent protection, it does not really prevent a large amount of material from being removed even from grassy ground. The wind carries this fine dust far and wide over the land, and over the sea as well. After the eruption of the island of Krakatoa in 1883, the dust which was the product of that mighty explosion was carried round the world, and even in England we saw the dust particles furnishing extraordinary colours in sunset skies.