Groundsel

“ Almost all of these are comparatively easy to treat in captivity, the larger ones being fed on maize, sunflower-seed, hemp, dari, oats, canary-seed, nuts and various ripe fruits, while the grass-parrakeets thrive remarkably well on little besides canary-seed and green food, the most suitable of which is grass in flower, chickweed, groundsel and various seed-bearing weeds. ”

“ The foundation consists of four well hewn groundsels, of about eight by ten inches, leveled and laid upon cross sawed blocks of a larger tree, or upon large stones. The corners are truly measured, and squared diamond-wise, by which means they are more nicely notched in upon each other; the roof is fitted with rafters, footed upon wall plates, and covered with clap-boards nailed upon the rafters in the manner of slating. In all other respects this is the same with the last mentioned method; and both are left open for the passage of the air between the logs. ”

“ Yet it was not grass but a curious green hard clay that seemed to make up the soil. Far to the distance low hills rose. The oddest feature of the soil was the fact that it was interminably interlaced with deep sharp cracks like a clay that had been baked improperly and cracks all over.
It seemed to me that there was a strange discoloration far off in the base of the hills from which white and grey plumes of vapor arose as if marking the factories of some hillside city. A city it could well prove to be and if that were so, then I had found a capital and subjects! ”

“ The soil then becomes apparently a mixture of decomposed slate and clay; the slate gradually disappearing on approaching to Cape Negro, where the rock partakes of the character of the east coast. Here again we observe, along with the change of geological character, the reappearance of islands, the soil of which is clayey, but with masses of granite, hornblende rock and clay slate protruding in many places through the superficial soil, which, although it yields a poor grass, is entirely destitute of trees. ”

“ Further on, hills were visible to the left, which our native guides called Goodeingora. Fragments of conglomerate rocks appeared in the soil of the plains, pebbles and grains of quartz cemented by felspar. These plains appeared to become undulating ground as we proceeded northward, and the surface became firmer. At length the country opened into slight undulations, well clothed with grass, and good for travelling over, the soil being full of the same hard rock found on the rising grounds nearest to the Darling, in the lowest parts of that river explored formerly by me. ”

“ For a whole mile we followed the windings of the Central Sea, when suddenly an important change took place in the aspect of the soil. It seemed to have been rudely cast up, convulsionized, as it were, by a violent upheaving of the lower strata. In many places, hollows here, and hillocks there, attested great dislocations at some other period of the terrestrial mass. We advanced with great difficulty over the broken masses of granite mixed with flint, quartz and alluvial deposits, when a large field, more even than a field, a plain of bones, appeared suddenly before our eyes. ”

“ For it is the nature of a groundswell to be exceedingly deceptive. Sometimes the waves are so far apart that the sea actually is level—smooth as the surface of a polished dining-table—till presently there appears a darker line slowly approaching, and a wave of considerable size comes in, advancing exactly like the crease in the cloth which the housemaid spreads on the table—the air rolling along underneath it forms a linen imitation of the groundswell. These unexpected rollers are capital at upsetting boats just touching the beach ”

“ In Holland, horses are driven up and down over each layer. In some parts of India the earth for embankments is brought from the borrow pits by scoops drawn by bullocks. The earthwork is of so excellent a character, owing to the earth being trodden down, that no settlement has to be allowed for. Where the soil is sand the top and faces of the embankment should be of good stiff soil, if it can be obtained, for a thickness of 9 inches or a foot, or else the face next the river should be protected by fascining (Chap. VI., Art. 3) for 2 feet above, and several feet below high flood-level. ”

“ Raindrops hung on the copper wire like a string of pearls, and the heavy clay of the fields was scooped and moulded by the rain into little saucer-like depressions as if by a potter's thumb. Behind us lay the reserve trenches, their clay walls shored up with wickerwork, and their outskirts fringed with barbed wire whose intricate and volatile coils looked like thistledown. [Pg 61] The village behind whose walls we now sheltered lay in a No Man's Land between the enemy's lines and our own, and the sodden fields were not more desolate. ”

“ It continues to stand, and to present a solid front, thanks only to the energy of its inhabitants. You might think, as you walked through most of its streets, that its foundations were no different from those of other cities; and you are surprised when you learn for the first time that it rests on no more solid basis than a number of wooden posts, or piles, firmly driven into a soil of loose sand and loam. ”

“ These plains or great terraces, of which three and four often rise like steps one behind the other, are formed by the denudation of the old Patagonian tertiary beds, and by the deposition on their surfaces of a mass of well-rounded gravel, varying, near the coast, from ten to thirty-five feet in thickness, but increasing in thickness towards the interior. The gravel is often capped by a thin irregular bed of sandy earth. The plains slope up, though seldom sensibly to the eye, from the summit edge of one escarpment to the foot of the next highest one. ”

“ The hills, if the bare eminences might be so-called, were composed of a red sandy soil producing only salsolae and composite plants, but no grass. This red sand was so loose that the wheels of the carts sank in it at some places to the axles. There were bold undulations where we encamped; all declining towards the hollow connected with the river. There was also a little hill overlooking plains to the north and west. ”

“ The surface of the land generally is composed of a black soil intermixed with clay, about a foot or a foot and a half deep, in some places more, and in some less; below, the stratum is white, reddish and yellow clay, which in some places is mixed with sand, and in others with gravel and stones. ”

“ In crossing the extremity of the range, the wheels of the dray sunk deep into a yielding and coarse sandy soil, of decomposed granite, on which forest-grass prevailed in tufts, which, being far apart, made the ground uneven, and caused the animals to trip. ”

“ The sand or gravel constituting the subsoil in these rolling tracts is, like the clay of the clay subsoil, stratified and assorted. But the layers here are rarely horizontal. They show the most various alternation and change of dip. No two sections could be taken that would give the same succession of parts. The sand sometimes lies in heavy deposits fifteen or twenty feet thick, with lines of deposition running in curving and vanishing layers in all directions. Sudden transitions occur from sand to gravel, or from gravel to bowlders. Sometimes, also, bowlders are found embedded in the gravel ”

“ There are also hills of pure clay, but sand hills I have not seen, except near the seashore, which have been cast up or formed by the ocean. There also are very rocky places which our naturalists suppose abound in minerals. The mountains and highlands are in some places tillable and fertile, the soil being composed of clay intermixed with stone. Other parts are composed of rocks, of various colours, but all overgrown with wood, growing in the seams, rents, clefts, and ravines. ”

“ From this brief sketch of the geological structure of this district, considered conjointly with its physiognomical character, the great dryness of the soil may be readily inferred. All the rain that falls on it, or the springs resulting from the partial accumulation and infiltration of this, are either absorbed by the friable soil, by the slaty strata, or are conveyed speedily down the declivities of the solid granite; while the short and declivous vallies, and the almost total absence of plain, afford little or no shelter for them after their descent. ”

“ For as the Bergmeister in the presence of these same persons sets the boundary stones on the surface, so the surveyor cuts in the rock a sign which for this reason is called the boundary rock. If he fixes the boundary mark of a meer in which a shaft has recently begun to be sunk on a vein, first of all he measures and notes the incline of that shaft by the compass or by another way with the applied cords; then he measures all the drifts up to that one in whose rock the boundary mark has to be cut. ”

“ The gravel prevails in wooded and rolling districts. In treeless districts the sandy element is more common, making a black loam. In valleys and along streams the soil is alluvial. It is invariably fine, nearly free from stones and bowlders, and very fertile. It is what is popularly known as "made land," and comprises those parts of the drift of the highlands that are susceptible of transportation by running water. ”

“ A graded valley is one in which deposition and corrasion are, in the vertical sense, balanced. Its angle of slope is most variable, and is dependent on the capacity of the stream for work, and on the work it has to do. A weak river must have a higher gradient than a strong one; a stream with much sediment must have a higher gradient than one with little, and a stream with a load of coarse material must have a higher gradient than one with a load of fine. ”

“ Origin of springs.—The action of running water on the surface of the land having been considered, we may next turn our attention to what may be termed "the subterranean drainage," or the phenomena of springs. Every one is familiar with the fact, that certain porous soils, such as loose sand and gravel, absorb water with rapidity, and that the ground composed of them soon dries up after heavy showers. If a well be sunk in such soils, we often penetrate to considerable depths before we meet with water ”

“ Thousands of square feet of fresh-made soil spread between your town and the sea; thousands more are in process of being made.
You will see now why I have begun with the soil in the field; because it is the uppermost, and therefore latest, of all the layers; and also for this reason, that, if Sir Charles Lyell’s theory be true—as it is—then the soils and rocks below the soil of the field may have been made in the very same way in which the soil of the field is made. ”

“ A peculiarity I have noticed in the soft, slaty ranges, is the very great inclination of the sides of ranges and gullies, having a good covering of soil, with grass and trees, and which I have seen considerably greater than that which geologists seem to have assigned as the extreme limit at which rock can carry a soil. ”

“ The back of the valley was formed by a single high ridge of smooth granite, and from it five offshoots ran down into the valley like fingers from the ridge of knuckles. At the tip of each of these fingers rose rocky peaks among the bush and jungle of the lower valley; these peaks and the fingers themselves form the strongholds of the individual impis. ”

“ One line, about two hundred feet in height, is regularly anticlinal, with the strata dipping away on both sides, at an angle of 15 degrees, from a central “valley of elevation,” about three hundred yards in width. A second narrow steep ridge, only sixty feet high, is uniclinal, the strata throughout dipping westward; those on both flanks being inclined at an angle of from ten to fifteen degrees; whilst those on the ridge dip in the same direction at an angle of between thirty and forty degrees. ”

“ This Ball, or lands containing this diversified matter or soil, contains about eighty acres in circumference; which amuseth most men how the earth, clay, sand, totty-stones, or spar-stone land, should yet be so high above the solid rocks to the top of this mountain, unless Noah’s flood was universal, and reached to this island, as the labouring tinners believe and tell us. ”

“ On each profile across the continental margin is a series of benches and changes in gradient which range from the shelf break to slight changes in gradient on the continental slope.
If a field geologist enters a new area of sedimentary rocks where road cuts do not exist he invariably goes to the stream valleys, and here he gets his first and best view of the geologic section. The stream's gradient is adjusted to the resistance of the rocks over which it cuts, and the form of the valley-side slopes reveals the nature of the underlying rocks even if they are grassed over. ”

“ In the strata or layers immediately above the rock, which in all the mines are perfectly uniform in their appearance and structure, it is particularly remarkable. It may be observed, however, that there are not in these strata any veins of rock-salt, connected with the great mass below: on the contrary, the line of division between the clay and rock-salt is drawn with great distinctness in every instance, and presents none of those inequalities which would arise from a mutual penetration of the strata. ”

“ But even setting aside the canals, the draining of the lakes, and the defensive works, on every side are seen the traces of marvelous undertakings. The soil, which in other countries is a gift of nature, is in Holland a work of men's hands. ”

“ It must not be supposed that we attempted to climb these hills in a direct line; it would have been scarcely possible for a man to do it: we wound round them in every practicable direction; and the loose rich soil of which they were generally composed, together with the thickness of the timber, by preventing our falling, favoured our progress. In the course of the afternoon I tried the angle of elevation and depression on various parts, and found it to be from 30 to 35 and even 40 degrees. ”