![Table
3.1.
(Cont.)
Name
Group
name
Chemical
formula
a
Structural
type
Related
phases
Usual
particle
size
Stability
Distinctive
physical
properties
Specific
surface
(m
2
g
1
)
b
CEC
(cmol
þ
kg
1
)
Soils
of
main
occurrence
Secondary
minerals
Kaolinite
Kaolin
Al
2
Si
2
O
5
(OH)
4
Phyllosilicate
Dickite,
Nacrite
Clay
Quite
high
Platy
6–40
0–8
Widespread;
high
in
well
weathered
soils
Halloysite
Kaolin
Al
2
Si
2
O
5
(OH)
4
2H
2
O
Phyllosilicate
(Endellite;
Meta-
halloysite
[0
H
2
O])
Clay
Moderate
Mostly
tubular
or
spheroidal
20–60
5–10
Where
wet;
espec.
from
volcanic
ash
Illite
Mica
K
0.6
(Ca,Na)
0.1
Si
3.4
Al
2
Fe
III
Mg
0.2
O
10
(OH)
2
Phyllosilicate
Clay
Moderate
Platy
55–195
10–40
Widespread;
espec.
weakly
weathered
soils
Montmo-
rillonite
Smectite
(Di-octahedral)
M
II
0.25
/M
I
0.5
Si
4
Al
1.5
Mg
0.5
O
10
(OH)
2
Phyllosilicate
Stevensite,
Hectorite
(trioctahedral)
Clay
Low
Swell:
extensively
when
M=Na
15–160
45–160
Mostly
where
drainage
poor
and
pH
high
Beidellite
Smectite
(Di-octahedral)
M
II
0.25
/M
I
0.5
Si
3.5
Al
2.5
O
10
(OH)
2
Phyllosilicate
Saponite
(trioctahedral)
Clay
Low
(I800)
Not
common
except
in
acid
leached
horizons
Nontronite
Smectite
(Di-octahedral)
M
II
0.25
/M
I
0.5
Si
3.5
Al
0.5
Fe
2
O
10
(OH)
2
Phyllosilicate
(Hisingerite)
Clay
Low
Rare
Vermiculite
dioctahedral
K
0.2
Ca
0.1
Si
3.2
Al
0.8
(Al
1.6
Fe
0.2
Mg
0.2
)
(Al
1.5
[OH]
4
)O
10
(OH)
2
Phyllosilicate
Pedogenic
chlorite,
HIV,
2:1–2:2
intergrade;
Chloritized
vermiculite
Clay
Low-moderate
unknown
pH-variable
Leached,
mildly
acid
soils
Illite-smectite
Interstratified
Variable,
intermediate
between
components
Phyllosilicate
Mica-smectite,
Illite
(Mica)-
vermiculite,
(Hydro-biotite
[-mica]),
Allevardite,
Rectorite
Clay
Low
unknown
unknown,
probably
moderate
From
diagenesis
and
early
stages
of
weathering
Chlorite-
smectite
Interstratified
Variable,
intermediate
between
components
Phyllosilicate
Chlorite-swelling
[chlorite],
Corrensite,
Chlorite-
vermiculite
Clay
Very
low
unknown
unknown
At
very
early
stages
of
weathering](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/1020885-250521151134-f5750b9d/85/Soils-Basic-Concepts-And-Future-Challenges-Certini-G-Scalenghe-R-Eds-50-320.jpg)
![has gone beyond a kind of impulse and movement. But we may effect
something more important in the coming year. My wife has taken an active
interest in the Magdalen Hospital, the Lying-in Hospital, and the orphanages
of various kinds. We want money, zeal, belief; and knowledge in many
quarters.
(Lord Napier to Miss Nightingale.) Madras, Sept. 3 [1868]. I am truly
happy to find that I can do something to please you and that you will count
me as a humble but devoted member of the Sanitary band, of your band I
might more properly say! Do you know that I was sent by Lord Stratford to
salute and welcome you on your first arrival at Scutari and that I found you
stretched on the sofa where I believe you never lay down again? I thought
then that it would be a great happiness to serve you, and if the Elchi would
have given me to you I would have done so with all my heart and learned
many things that would have been useful to me now. But the Elchi would
never employ any one on serious work who was at all near himself, so I
spent the best years of my life at a momentous crisis doing nothing when
there was enough for all! But if I can do something now it will be a late
compensation … [report on various sanitary measures then in hand]. I have
read the beautiful account of “Una” last evening driving along the
melancholy shore. I send it to Lady Napier, who is in the Hills. I will write
again soon, as you permit and even desire it, and I am ever your faithful,
grateful and devoted Servant, Napier.
(Lord Napier to Miss Nightingale.) Madras, June 3 [1869].[171] … Now I
have a good piece of news for you. We are framing a Bill for a general
scheme of local taxation in this Presidency, both in municipalities and in
villages, and the open country, to provide for three purposes—local roads,
primary education, and Sanitation—such as improvement of wells,
regulation of pilgrimages and fairs, drainage, c. It will be very unpopular I
fear in the first instance, for the people wish neither to be taught nor cured,
but I think it is better on the whole to force their hands. We are driven to it,
for I see clearly that we must wait a long time for help from the Supreme
Government.… I was pleased and flattered to be mentioned by you in the
same sentence with Lord Herbert. Indeed I am not worthy to tie the latchet
of his shoe, but there are weaknesses and illusions which endure to the
last, and I suppose I never shall be indifferent to see myself praised by a
woman and placed in connection, however remote, with a person of so](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/1020885-250521151134-f5750b9d/85/Soils-Basic-Concepts-And-Future-Challenges-Certini-G-Scalenghe-R-Eds-56-320.jpg)
![much virtue and distinction. You shall have the little labour that is left in
me.[105]
A subject on which Miss Nightingale wrote both to Lord Napier and
to Lord Mayo was the inquiry into cholera in India ordered by the
Secretary of State in April 1869. She had made the proposition many
months before. Indian medical officers were absorbed in propounding
theories; Miss Nightingale wanted first an exhaustive inquiry into the
facts. Even if such an inquiry did not establish any of the rival
theories, it must lead, she thought, to much sanitary improvement. Sir
Bartle Frere strongly supported the idea, and it was arranged that the
War Office Sanitary Committee should make the suggestion and
elaborate the scheme of procedure to be followed in India. The
Committee meant for such a purpose Dr. Sutherland, and
Dr. Sutherland meant in part Miss Nightingale. Sir Bartle Frere
constantly wrote to her to know when the India Office might expect
the Instructions, and Miss Nightingale as constantly applied the spur
to Dr. Sutherland. On April 3 she delivered an ultimatum: “Unless the
Cholera Instructions are sent to me to-day, I renounce work and go
away.” At last they arrived, and her friend received a withering note:
“April 13, 1869. I beg leave to remark that I found a letter of yours
this morning dated early in Dec., which I mean to show you, in which,
with the strongest objurgations of me, you told me that you could not
come because you intended to get the Cholera Instructions through
by December 12, 1868. My dear soul, really Sir B. Frere could not
have known the exhausting labour he has put you all to; to produce
that in four months must prove fatal to all your constitutions! He is an
ogre.” Dr. Sutherland's Instructions are admirably exhaustive, and may
well have taken some time to prepare. The remaining stages of the
affair were quick, and the Secretary of State's dispatch went out to
the Government of India on April 23, followed by private letters from](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/1020885-250521151134-f5750b9d/85/Soils-Basic-Concepts-And-Future-Challenges-Certini-G-Scalenghe-R-Eds-57-320.jpg)
![Miss Nightingale. The Sanitary Blue-books of successive years contain
copious reports and discussions upon this “Special Cholera Inquiry.” It
furnished much material for scientific discussion, by which Miss
Nightingale sometimes feared that what she regarded as the essence
of the matter was in danger of being overlaid. She and the Army
Sanitary Committee took occasion more than once to point out that
“whatever may be the origin of cholera, or whatever may ultimately
be found to be its laws of movement, there is nothing in any of the
papers except what strengthens the evidence for the intimate relation
which all previous experience has shown to exist between the
intensity and fatality of cholera in any locality and the sanitary
condition of the population inhabiting it.”[106] The origin of cholera is
now said to be a micro-organism identified by Koch, but the laws of its
movement and activity remain inscrutable. Meanwhile, all subsequent
experience has confirmed the doctrine which Miss Nightingale
continually preached, that the one protection against cholera consists
in a standing condition of good sanitation.
IV
At the very time when Dr. Sutherland was hard at work upon the
Cholera Instructions, Miss Nightingale heard a report (on good
authority) which filled her with anger and consternation. Mr. Gladstone
was engaged in cutting down the Army Estimates; the Army Medical
Service was believed to be marked for retrenchment, and the War
Office Sanitary Commission for destruction. When she told this to
Dr. Sutherland, he took the matter with nonchalance and said (as men
are sometimes apt to say in such cases, especially if there is a woman
to rely upon) that he did not see that anything could be done. Very
different was the view taken by Miss Nightingale, when she
contemplated, not merely the interruption of Dr. Sutherland's useful](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/1020885-250521151134-f5750b9d/85/Soils-Basic-Concepts-And-Future-Challenges-Certini-G-Scalenghe-R-Eds-58-320.jpg)
![work,[107] but the possibility of all Sidney Herbert's work being
undermined. Nothing to be done indeed! There was everything to be
done! She could write to the Prime Minister himself. She could write to
Lord de Grey (Lord President). She could get this friend to approach
one Minister, and that friend to approach another. She could even
claim a slight acquaintance, and write to Mr. Cardwell (Secretary for
War). She could write to all her friends among the Opposition and give
them timely notice of the wicked things intended by their adversaries.
She ultimately wrote to Lord de Grey, enclosing a letter which he was
to hand or not, at his discretion, to Mr. Cardwell. The intervention was
successful, and Lord de Grey asked her for Memoranda to “post him
up” in the work of the Army Sanitary Commission and in the Sanitary
Progress in India. Lord de Grey interceded with Mr. Cardwell also on
behalf of the Army Medical School and it was spared. The Army
Sanitary Committee was not touched, and for nearly twenty years
more (till 1888) Dr. Sutherland continued his work upon it. Miss
Nightingale's reports submitted to Lord de Grey are summarized in a
letter to M. Mohl (Nov. 21, 1869):—“I am all in the arithmetical line
now. Lately I have been making up our Returns in a popular form for
one of the Cabinet Ministers (we are obliged to be very ‘popular’ for
them—but hush! my abject respect for Cabinet Ministers prevails). I
find that every year, taken upon the last four years for which we have
returns (1864–7), there are, in the Home Army, 729 men alive every
year who would have been dead but for Sidney Herbert's measures,
and 5184 men always on active duty who would have been ‘constantly
sick’ in bed. In India the difference is still more striking. Taken on the
last two years, the death-rate of Bombay (civil, military and native) is
lower than that of London, the healthiest city of Europe. And the
death-rate of Calcutta is lower than that of Liverpool or Manchester!
[108] But this is not the greatest victory. The Municipal Commissioner](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/1020885-250521151134-f5750b9d/85/Soils-Basic-Concepts-And-Future-Challenges-Certini-G-Scalenghe-R-Eds-59-320.jpg)
![of Bombay writes[109] that the ‘huddled native masses clamorously
invoke the aid of the Health Department’ if but one death from
cholera or small-pox occurs; whereas formerly half of them might be
swept away and the other half think it all right. Now they attribute
these deaths to dirty foul water and the like, and openly declare them
preventable. No hope for future civilization among the ‘masses’ like
this!”
V
In December 1869 Miss Nightingale made a new friend. Lord Napier
of Magdala[110] was passing through London, and wrote to Sir Bartle
Frere saying that it “would make him very happy if he could have the
privilege of paying his respects to Miss Nightingale before he left.” Sir
Bartle begged Miss Nightingale to grant the favour, as Lord Napier was
devoted to their cause and was likely to be employed in India again—
as quickly came to pass, for in the following month he was appointed
Commander-in-Chief.[111] Lord Napier called on December 14, in order
(as he wrote to her in making the appointment) “to have an
opportunity of saying how much I have felt indebted to you for the
assistance that your precepts and example gave to all who have been
concerned with the care of soldiers and their families.” He spent some
hours with her, and she was charmed with him. “I felt sure,” wrote Sir
Bartle Frere (Dec. 23), “that you would like Lord Napier of Magdala.
He always seemed to me one of the few men fit for the Round Table.”
A long note which she recorded of the conversation shows how
congenial it must have been to her, for Lord Napier talked with strong
feeling of the importance and the practicability of improving the moral
health of the British soldier. The administrators and the men of action
always appealed to her more than the politicians, and Lord Napier of
Magdala was now added to her list of heroes. “When I look at these](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/1020885-250521151134-f5750b9d/85/Soils-Basic-Concepts-And-Future-Challenges-Certini-G-Scalenghe-R-Eds-60-320.jpg)
![three men (tho' strangely different[112])—Lord Lawrence, Lord Napier
of Magdala and Sir Bartle Frere—for practical ability, for statesmanlike
perception of where the truth lies and what is to be done and who is
to do it, for high aim, for noble disinterestedness, I feel that there is
not a Minister we have in England fit to tie their shoes—since Sidney
Herbert. There is a simplicity, a largeness of view and character about
these three men, as about Sidney Herbert, that does not exist in the
present Ministers. They are party men; these three are statesmen. S.
Herbert made enemies by not being a party man; it gave him such an
advantage over them.” Lord Napier of Magdala came to see Miss
Nightingale again in the following year (March 18, 1870), spending in
conversation with her his last hours before leaving London to take up
his appointment in India. She and Sir Bartle Frere attached high
importance to this interview. Lord Napier was a convinced sanitarian.
He was bent upon introducing many reforms in the treatment of the
soldiers. He believed in the possibility of improving both their moral
and physical condition, by means of rational recreation and suitable
employment. Sir Bartle Frere suggested to Miss Nightingale that after
seeing the Commander-in-Chief she should write to the Viceroy so as
to prepare his mind for what Lord Napier would propose. Lord Napier
himself begged her to do so. “Everything in India,” he said to her,
“depends on what is thought in England, and it was you who raised
public opinion in England on these subjects.” Preparation of the
Viceroy's mind was held to be the more necessary because a letter,
lately received by Miss Nightingale from him, seemed to show that his
sanitary education was by no means complete. So Mr. Jowett's
“Governess of the Governors of India” took her pupil again by the
hand, and, with Dr. Sutherland's assistance, drew up a further
Memorandum on the Indian sanitary question at large. Referring him
to the Royal Commission's Report, she pointed out that the causes of
ill-health among the troops were many, and that there was no single](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/1020885-250521151134-f5750b9d/85/Soils-Basic-Concepts-And-Future-Challenges-Certini-G-Scalenghe-R-Eds-61-320.jpg)
![panacea; that if other causes were not concurrently removed, the
erection of new barracks could not suffice; that fever may lurk
beneath and around “costly palaces” (for so Lord Mayo had called
some of the new barracks) even as around hovels; that expense
incurred in all-round sanitary improvement can never be costly in the
sense of extravagant, because it is essentially saving and reproductive
expenditure; and so forth, and so forth.[113] Miss Nightingale, before
sending her letter, submitted it to Sir Bartle Frere (March 25). “I have
nothing to suggest,” he said, “in the way of alteration, and only wish
that its words of wisdom were in print, and that thousands besides
Lord Mayo could profit by them. They are in fact exactly what we
want to have said to every one connected with the question from the
Viceroy down to the Village Elder.” Sir Bartle begged her to consider
whether she could not write something to the same effect which
would reach the latter class. Mr. Jowett had suggested something of
the sort a few years before. “Did it ever occur to you,” he had written
(March 1867), “that you might write a short pamphlet or tract for the
natives in India and get it translated? That would be a curious and
interesting thing to do. When I saw the other day the account of Miss
Carpenter in India, I felt half sorry that it was not you. They would
have worshipped you like a divinity. A pretty reason! you will say. But
then you might have gently rebuked the adoring natives as St. Paul
did on a similar occasion, and assured them that you were only a
Washerwoman and not a Divine at all; that would have had an
excellent effect.” Presently she found an opportunity of doing
something in the kind that Mr. Jowett and Sir Bartle Frere had
suggested.
Meanwhile, Lord Mayo had introduced Dr. J. W. Cunningham to Miss
Nightingale, and they became great allies. When he returned to
resume his duties as “Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/1020885-250521151134-f5750b9d/85/Soils-Basic-Concepts-And-Future-Challenges-Certini-G-Scalenghe-R-Eds-62-320.jpg)
![to take them in at the house of his daughters, of whom one married a
Cama, and the other is the first Parsee lady who ever lived as an
English single lady might do.” Many other Indian ladies and gentlemen
were introduced to Miss Nightingale personally or in correspondence
by Miss Carpenter. In 1870 Miss Nightingale was elected an Honorary
Member of the Bengal Social Science Association, the Council of which
body was mainly composed of Indian gentlemen. She wrote a cordial
letter of thanks (May 25). “For eleven years,” she said, “what little I
could do for India, for the conditions on which the Eternal has made
to depend the lives and healths and social happiness of men, as well
Native as European, has been the constant object of my thoughts by
day and my thoughts by night.” She eulogized the work that had been
done by many private gentlemen of India; she put before them a
vision of vast schemes of drainage and irrigation; she sent a
subscription to the funds of the Association, and promised a
contribution to its Proceedings. In this contribution,[114] sent in June
1870, Miss Nightingale did what Sir Bartle Frere desired: she
addressed the Village Elder. “I think,” said Dr. Sutherland, who had
submitted a draft for Miss Nightingale to rewrite in her own language,
“that this is the most important contribution you have made to the
question.” In simple and terse language, she described the sanitary
reforms which might be carried out by the people themselves—
pointing out in detail the nature of the evils, and the appropriate
remedies for them, and then appealing to simple motives for sanitary
improvement. “As we find in all history and true fable that the
meanest causes universally multiplied produce the greatest effects, let
us not think it other than a fitting sacrifice to the Eternal and Perfect
One to look into the lowest habits of great peoples, in order, if we
may, to awaken them to a sense of the injury they are doing
themselves and the good they might do themselves. Much of the
willingness for education is due to the fact, appreciated by them, that](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/1020885-250521151134-f5750b9d/85/Soils-Basic-Concepts-And-Future-Challenges-Certini-G-Scalenghe-R-Eds-64-320.jpg)
![by book-post. She continued to contribute in one way or another to
successive volumes[115]; and that for 1874 included a long and
important paper by her.
VIII
Ten years before Miss Nightingale had popularized the Report of her
Royal Commission in a paper entitled “How People may Live and Not
Die in India.” The Paper was read to the Social Science Congress in
1863. In 1873 she was again requested to contribute a Paper to the
Congress. She chose for her title “How some People have Lived, and
Not Died in India.” It was a summary in popular form of ten years'
progress, and this was the Paper which the India Office reprinted in its
Blue-book of 1874. Miss Nightingale glanced in rapid detail at the
improvements in various parts of India; took occasion to give credit to
particularly zealous officials; and noticed incidentally some of the
common objections. One objection was that caste prejudice must ever
be an insuperable obstacle to sanitary improvement. She gave “a
curious and cheerful” instance to the contrary. Calcutta had “found the
fabled virtues of the Ganges in the pure water-tap.” When the water-
supply was first introduced, the high-caste Hindoos still desired their
water-carriers to bring them the sacred water from the river; but
these functionaries, finding it much easier to take the water from the
new taps, just rubbed in a little (vulgar, not sacred) mud and
presented it as Ganges water. When at last the healthy fraud was
discovered, public opinion, founded on experience, had already gone
too far to return to dirty water. And the new water-supply was, at
public meetings, adjudged to be “theologically as well as physically
safe.” Then there was the objection of expense, but she analysed the
result of sanitary improvements in statistics of the army. The death-
rate had been brought down from 69 per 1000 to 18. Only 18 men](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/1020885-250521151134-f5750b9d/85/Soils-Basic-Concepts-And-Future-Challenges-Certini-G-Scalenghe-R-Eds-67-320.jpg)
![died where 69 died before. A sum of £285,000 was the money saving
on recruits in a single year.
The course of sanitary improvement, and the results of it, among
the civil population cannot be brought to any such definite test; no
Indian census was taken till 1872, registration of births and deaths
was only beginning and was very imperfect; and India is a country as
large as the whole of Europe (without Russia). It was the opinion of a
competent authority that the sanitary progress which had been made
in India during the years covered by Miss Nightingale's review “had no
parallel in the history of the world”;[116] but the progress was relative
of course to the almost incredibly insanitary condition of the country
when she began her crusade. The progress had been made along
many different lines. First, in connection with the health of military
stations, the Government of India established committees of military,
civil, medical and engineering officers, of local magistrates and village
authorities to regulate the sanitary arrangements of the
neighbourhood. Sanitary oases for British troops were thus established
in the midst of insanitary deserts. Then, sanitary regulations were
issued for fairs and pilgrimages—each of these a focus of Indian
disease. Institutions in India—hospitals, jails, asylums—had been
greatly improved; and the municipalities of the great cities had made
some sanitary progress. Ten years before, Miss Nightingale had
reported to the Royal Commission that no one of the seats of
Presidencies in India had as yet arrived at the degree of sanitary
civilization shown in the worst parts of the worst English towns. Now,
Calcutta had a pure-water supply and the main drainage of most of
the town was complete. Bombay had done less by municipal action,
but thanks to a specially vigorous Health Officer, Dr. Hewlett,
sanitation had been improved. Madras had improved its water-supply
and was successfully applying a part of its sewage to agriculture. The](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/1020885-250521151134-f5750b9d/85/Soils-Basic-Concepts-And-Future-Challenges-Certini-G-Scalenghe-R-Eds-68-320.jpg)
![condition of the vast regions of rural India showed that the teaching
of the Sanitary Commissioners was beginning to take some effect.
Hollows and excavations near villages were being filled up; brushwood
and jungle, removed; wells, cleaned. Surface refuse was being
removed; and tanks were being provided for sewage, to prevent it
going into the drinking-tanks. From reports of particular places, Miss
Nightingale drew her favourite moral. There was a village in South
India which had suffered very badly from cholera and fever. It was in
a foul and wretched state, and had polluted water. Then wells were
dug and properly protected; the surface drainage was improved;
cleanliness was enforced; trees were planted. The village escaped the
next visitation of the scourge. Miss Nightingale had many hours of
depression, and many occasions of disappointment, as Health
Missionary for India; but in her Paper of 1874 she bore “emphatic
witness how great are the sanitary deeds already achieved, or in the
course of being achieved, by the gallant Anglo-Indians, as formerly
she bore emphatic witness against the then existing neglects.” Only
the fringe of the evil had been touched; but at any rate enough had
been done to show that the old bogey, “the hopeless Indian climate,”
might in course of time be laid by wise precautions. “There is a vast
work going on in India,” said Dr. Sutherland; and in this work Miss
Nightingale had throughout played a principal, and the inspiring, part.
It was the opinion of an unprejudiced expert who, though he admired
her devotion, did not always agree with her views or methods, that
“of the sanitary improvements in India three-fourths are due to Miss
Nightingale.”[117]
But here, as in all things, her gaze was fixed upon the path to
perfection. In her own mind she counted less the past advance than
the future way. There was an Appendix to her Paper in which she
preached the supreme importance of Irrigation—of irrigation, that is,](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/1020885-250521151134-f5750b9d/85/Soils-Basic-Concepts-And-Future-Challenges-Certini-G-Scalenghe-R-Eds-69-320.jpg)
![and the nursing staffs, and she was constantly referred to for
suggestions and advice. She printed a code of “Suggestions” in 1868
dealing with such matters,[118] and three years later she and
Dr. Sutherland drew up a Code for Infirmary Nursing which was
approved by Mr. Stansfeld, the President of the newly-formed Local
Government Board. Her correspondence was as extensive with
individuals as with institutions. Hundreds of girls who thought of
becoming nurses applied to her, and she generally answered their
letters; but the supply of nurses barely kept pace with the demand.
Miss Nightingale was impressed in particular by the lack of suitable
applicants for the higher posts. There were many women anxious to
take up nursing as a profession. There were few who possessed the
social standing, the high character, trained intelligence, and personal
devotion which were necessary to make them successful Lady
Superintendents; and much of Miss Nightingale's correspondence
during these years was to friends in various parts of the country who
were begged to enlist promising recruits.
II
Among the women who sought out Miss Nightingale for advice were
Queens and Princesses. She guarded very jealously, however, the
seclusion which was necessary to enable her to do her chosen work,
and she did not allow it to be invaded at will even by the most exalted
personages. Her position as a chronic invalid gave her the advantage.
She could pick and choose by feeling a little stronger or a little weaker.
She made two rules which she communicated to her influential
friends. She would not be well enough to see any Queen or Princess
who did not take a personal and practical interest in hospitals or
nursing; and she would never be well enough to receive any who did
not come unattended by ladies or lords in waiting. Any interview must
be entirely devoid of ceremonial; it must be simply between one](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/1020885-250521151134-f5750b9d/85/Soils-Basic-Concepts-And-Future-Challenges-Certini-G-Scalenghe-R-Eds-72-320.jpg)
![woman interested in nursing and another. In 1867 the Queen of
Prussia was paying a visit to the English court, and Queen Victoria
asked Miss Nightingale through Sir James Clark to see Queen Augusta.
Miss Nightingale was assured that the Queen had given much
personal attention to hospitals. Miss Nightingale saw her (July 6) and
found that the assurances were well founded:—
(Miss Nightingale to Julius Mohl.) 35 South Street, July 28 [1867]. I am a
little unhappy because the Queen of Prussia's Secretary told Mad. Mohl that
I had seen the Queen. I liked her. I don't think the mixture of pietism and
absolutism is much more attractive at the Court of Prussia than at the Court
of Rome. Still, I am always struck, especially with our own Royal family, how
superior they are in earnestness and education to other women. I know no
two girls of any class, of any country, who take so much interest in things
that are interesting, as the Crown Princess of Prussia and Princess Alice of
Darmstadt—especially in theological matters and administration.
The Queen of Holland, it will be remembered, had not been
received; but at a later time Miss Nightingale saw her, in November
1868 and again in March 1870. “I think of you,” wrote Queen Sophie
(March 29, 1870), “as one of the highest and best I have met in this
world.” The Princess Alice asked for an interview in 1867 through Lady
Herbert, who was able to inform Miss Nightingale that “the Princess
has been to see most of the hospitals in London with a view to learn
all about them so as to improve those in Darmstadt.” Miss Nightingale
saw the Princess in June, and in subsequent years there was much
correspondence between them. But the royal lady who made the
greatest impression on Miss Nightingale was the Crown Princess
Victoria. It had been explained to Miss Nightingale by one of the
Princess's ladies that “H.R.H. has always thought a life devoted to the
comfort of fellow-beings and the alleviation of their sufferings the one
most to be envied,” and that “she knows your Notes on Hospitals and
Notes on Nursing almost by heart.” The Princess was in England at the](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/1020885-250521151134-f5750b9d/85/Soils-Basic-Concepts-And-Future-Challenges-Certini-G-Scalenghe-R-Eds-73-320.jpg)
![end of 1868, and was full at the time of schemes for a new hospital at
Berlin, for lying-in hospitals, for a training-school for nurses. She
showed her practical purpose by sending to Miss Nightingale in
advance her architect's plans. They had two long interviews in
December, and Miss Nightingale had a very busy fortnight with
Dr. Sutherland in collecting statistics about various lying-in hospitals
and in preparing plans, with the assistance of the Army Medical
Department and War Office Sanitary Committee, on the best model.
Miss Nightingale was delighted with her visitor. “She took every point,”
she told Dr. Sutherland, “as quick as lightning.” “I have a fresh
neophyte,” she wrote to Sir John McNeill (Dec. 25, 1868), “in the
person of the Crown Princess of Prussia. She has a quick intelligence,
and is cultivating herself in knowledge of sanitary (and female)
administration for her future great career. She comes alone like a girl,
pulls off her hat and jacket like a five-year-old, drags about a great
portfolio of plans, and kneels by my bedside correcting them. She
gives a great deal of trouble. But I believe it will bear fruit.” That the
inquiries of the Princess were searching, and her commissions
exacting, appears from the correspondence:—
(Miss Nightingale to the Crown Princess of Prussia.) 35 South Street, Dec.
21 [1868]. Madam—In grateful obedience to Your Royal Highness's
command, directing me to forward to Osborne before the 24th the
commissions with which you favoured me, I send (1) the Portfolio of plans
for the Hospital[189] near the Plotzen See, and, in this envelope, the
criticism upon the plans. Also, in another envelope (2) a sketch of the
Nursing “hierarchy” required to nurse this Hospital (with a Training School
attached), even to ages desirable—as desired by Your Royal Highness. Also
(3) the methods of continuous examination in use (with full-sized copies of
the Forms) to test the progress of our Probationers (Probe-Schwestern).
Also (4) lists of the clothing and underclothing (even to changes of linen)
we give to and require from our Probationers and Nurses, and of the
changes of sheets. Your Royal Highness having directed me to send
patterns “in paper” of our Probationers' dress, I have thought it better to](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/1020885-250521151134-f5750b9d/85/Soils-Basic-Concepts-And-Future-Challenges-Certini-G-Scalenghe-R-Eds-74-320.jpg)
![have a complete uniform dress such as our Probationers wear, for in-doors
and out-doors, made for Your Royal Highness's inspection, even to bonnet,
cap, and collar, which will arrive by this Messenger in a small box and
parcel. I am afraid that the aspect of these papers will be quite alarming
from their bulk. But I can only testify my gratitude for your Royal Highness's
great kindness by fulfilling as closely as I can the spirit of your gracious will.
I am sorry to say that I have not yet done encumbering your Royal
Highness. The plans for Lying-in Cottages had to be completed at the War
Office and are not quite ready. But they shall be forwarded “before the
24th.” I think we have succeeded in producing a perfectly healthy and
successful Lying-in Cottage, by means of great sub-division and incessant
cleanliness and ventilation, which includes the not having any ward
constantly occupied. In one of these Huts we have had 600 Lyings-in
consecutively without a single death or case of puerperal disease or
casualty of any kind. (This experience is, I believe, without a fellow, but
will, I trust, have many fellows before long.) Believe me, your Royal
Highness's enquiry about these things does the greatest good, not only with
regard to what is proposed in Prussia, but in stirring up the War Office, the
Medical authorities, and other officials here to consider these vital trifles
more seriously. And thus thousands of lives of poor women, of poor patients
of all kinds, will be saved, even in England, through your Royal Highness's
means. Hitherto Lying-in Hospitals have been not to cure but to kill. As I
have again to trouble your Royal Highness about these subjects, I will not
now enter into two or three other little things with which I was
commissioned. May I beg always to be considered, Madam, the most
faithful, ready and devoted of Your Royal Highness's servants.
(The Crown Princess of Prussia to Miss Nightingale.) Osborne, Dec. 24
[1868]. I don't wish to lose a minute in thanking you for your great
kindness and for all the trouble you[190] have taken for me. Your letter is so
excellent, and all the information you give is most valuable, and will be of
untold use, not only to me as a guide in my humble endeavours to promote
a serious, conscientious, and rational spirit in the treatment of sanitary
matters, but to many others in Germany. Your precious time has not been
wasted while you were writing for me, I assure you. The dress I think very
neat and nice, and not clerical looking (which is, in my eyes, an advantage).
I was so vexed that I forgot to tell you the other day how much I admired
Una and the Lion. I read it this summer in Germany, and thought it touching](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/1020885-250521151134-f5750b9d/85/Soils-Basic-Concepts-And-Future-Challenges-Certini-G-Scalenghe-R-Eds-75-320.jpg)
![Mackenzie on the Zambesi Mission. One, a woman who would be
distinguished in any society, accidentally read my little article on ‘Una,’
and wrote off to us the same night offering to go through our training
(which she did) and join us.”
“Expounding Regulations” was always a part of Miss Nightingale's
exhortation on such occasions. In this particular case she had a hand
in making the Regulations. In other cases she often found them very
stupid. They were generally made by men, who were incapable, she
thought (as we have heard already), of devising suitable regulations
for women. “Oh, how I wish there were no men,” she wrote on one
occasion when trying to compose a hospital quarrel. But even bad
regulations must be observed, till they can be altered, and women did
not always understand that some diplomacy was necessary to obtain
the alteration. “Women,” she said, “are unable to see that it requires
wisdom as well as self-denial to establish any new work.” As the work
which the Nightingale Nurses had at this time to do was all new, there
were many difficulties and most of them came up to Miss Nightingale
for solution or advice. When a very long-winded letter arrived, she
would often send it on unread to Dr. Sutherland, for him to digest and
advise upon. It was her comfortable persuasion that he had nothing
else to do, and she scolded him if there was any delay; but sooner or
later he did the work for her, and his advice in such matters never
failed in shrewd common sense. Sometimes he would say, “This letter
shows a fit of temper on the nurse's part, and is a case for a little
homily from you.” In such homilies Miss Nightingale would mingle an
appeal to higher motives with a reference to her own example and
experience—as in the following letter:—
(To a Discontented Nurse.) April 22 [1869]. Do you think I should have
succeeded in doing anything if I had kicked and resisted and resented? Is it
our Master's command? Is it even common sense? I have been even shut](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/1020885-250521151134-f5750b9d/85/Soils-Basic-Concepts-And-Future-Challenges-Certini-G-Scalenghe-R-Eds-81-320.jpg)
![out of hospitals into which I had been ordered to go by the Commander-in-
Chief—obliged to stand outside the door in the snow till night—been refused
rations for as much as 10 days at a time for the nurses I had brought by
superior command.[119] And I have been as good friends the day after with
the officials who did these things—have resolutely ignored these things for
the sake of the work. What was I to my Master's work? When people
offend, they offend the Master, before they do me. And who am I that I
should not choose to bear what my Master chooses to bear? You have many
high and noble points of character. Else I should not write to you as I do.
But the spirit of opposition in which you are working (or rather were at the
time you wrote, for I am satisfied it was only an ebullition of the moment),
and yet doing your work well and doing good, would, if it really were
persisted in, materially increase the difficulties of that work to which, I am
sure, you are devoted.
IV
There was one failure in the work of the Nightingale Fund which led
Miss Nightingale to write a new book, than which none ever cost her
more labour. In 1867 the Midwifery School established in King's
College Hospital[120] had to be closed owing to the high rate of
mortality in the lying-in wards. As soon as the figures were brought to
Miss Nightingale's notice, she set to work in examining the whole
subject of mortality in lying-in wards. She soon found that no
trustworthy statistics of mortality in child-bed had yet been collected.
She searched for them throughout this country and from foreign
hospitals and doctors. She discovered that in lying-in wards
everywhere the death-rate was many times the amount of that which
took place in home deliveries. This fact showed that public attention
should at once be called to the subject, and at the same time it
opened up larger questions. There was one school of medical opinion
which held that the mortality must in the nature of things be large in
lying-in wards; there was another which held that the high rate of
mortality therein might be prevented. The inquiries which Miss](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/1020885-250521151134-f5750b9d/85/Soils-Basic-Concepts-And-Future-Challenges-Certini-G-Scalenghe-R-Eds-82-320.jpg)
![Nightingale had made for the Crown Princess of Prussia[121] inclined
her to the latter view, and she pursued her researches in all
directions, collecting an immense mass of information and calling in
the assistance of sanitary engineers and other authorities. It should
be remembered in all this that the introduction of antiseptics has
much altered the conditions since the time of Miss Nightingale's work
now under consideration. Materials for a book accumulated, but time
to put them into shape was wanting. Dr. Sutherland, on whose
assistance she mainly relied, was no more able than she herself to
give undivided attention to the subject; but at last with his help the
book was written. It was published in October 1871, with the title
Introductory Notes on Lying-in Institutions. The book did for this
special subject something of the same service which Notes on
Hospitals had done in the general sphere. Miss Nightingale showed by
statistical evidence that many lying-in wards and institutions were
pest-houses; she showed the importance of isolation and extreme
cleanliness; and furnished model rules, plans and specifications for
sanitary lying-in hospitals. In the latter pages, the book was an
extension of the Notes on Nursing to this special branch. She urged
the importance of training-schools for midwives; described the ideal of
an institution of the kind; and pleaded for “Midwifery as a Career for
Educated Women.” There was much agitation at the time for the
admission of women to the medical profession. Miss Nightingale in a
letter addressed “Dear Sisters,” suggested that there was “a better
thing for women to be than ‘medical men,’ and that is to be medical
women.” She was in the country when the book was passing through
the press; and Dr. Sutherland, in sending a last revise with some
suggestions of his own, said (July 22), “I return the proof corrected.
Don't swear, but read the reasons on the accompanying paper. It is a
good thing you are at Lea Hurst or your ‘dear sisters’ would infallibly
break your head. They will probably break your windows. However,](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/1020885-250521151134-f5750b9d/85/Soils-Basic-Concepts-And-Future-Challenges-Certini-G-Scalenghe-R-Eds-83-320.jpg)
Soils Basic Concepts And Future Challenges Certini G Scalenghe R Eds
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- 7. SOILS: BASIC CONCEPTS AND FUTURE CHALLENGES This book was born as an international tribute to Fiorenzo C. Ugolini, an outstanding soil scientist who recently retired from university teaching and research. It is a fully up-to-date synthesis of the present knowledge of soils, their genesis, functions and management. It includes contributions from leading soil scientists and the result is a book that provides the basic concepts as well as the latest data and practical examples from across the discipline, including many issues that are overlooked in other treatments. The book also discusses the increasingly important role of soils in enabling the preservation of life. Soils: Basic Concepts and Future Challenges provides the necessary keys to name soils and soil horizons. It contains a rare attempt to cross-harmonize the Reference Soil Groups of the World Reference Base of Soil Resources with the Soil Orders of the Soil Taxonomy, and presents a novel analysis of the various soil-forming factors. The book also quantifies the global extent of human-impacted soils, and the possible existence of extraterrestrial soils based on the findings from the last space missions. This volume will be a valuable resource for researchers and students of soil science, soil conservation, geography and landscape ecology. The Editors of this book, Giacomo Certini and Riccardo Scalenghe, are researchers at the Universities of Florence and Palermo respectively. Authors of numerous papers in international journals dealing with soil science and ecology, they have carried out studies in various European countries including Italy, Norway, Poland, Spain, Switzerland and the UK. They teach topics related to soil, water and the environment.
- 9. SOILS: BASIC CONCEPTS AND FUTURE CHALLENGES GIACOMO CERTINI University of Florence RICCARDO SCALENGHE University of Palermo
- 10. CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK First published in print format ISBN-13 978-0-521-85173-2 ISBN-13 978-0-511-34880-8 © Cambridge University Press 2006 2006 Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521851732 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. ISBN-10 0-511-34880-0 ISBN-10 0-521-85173-4 Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org hardback eBook (EBL) eBook (EBL) hardback
- 11. ‘We might say that the earth has the spirit of growth; that its flesh is the soil.’ Leonardo da Vinci This book pays homage to Professor Fiorenzo C. Ugolini, who has recently retired from his long career as a university professor of soil science. All the authors of this book had spirited interactions with him. He is an enthusiastic and inspirational teacher and scientist, a tremendous mentor and friend, and a talented Renaissance man. We all benefited greatly from his valuable contributions through which he enriched us and our discipline, soil science. For this reason, and perhaps also for the vital energy Professor Ugolini showed on every occasion, the authors accepted with enthusiasm the invitation to contribute to this book dedicated to his career. We hope that this text represents a useful resource for preparing future soil scientists.
- 13. Contents List of contributors page xi Preface xiii Acknowledgements xvi 1 Concepts of soils 1 Richard W. Arnold 1.1 Some Greek and Roman concepts 2 1.2 The transition 4 1.3 The awakening 4 1.4 Genetic supremacy 5 1.5 Sampling volumes 7 1.6 Landscape systems 9 1.7 The new millennium 9 2 Pedogenic processes and pathways of horizon differentiation 11 Stanley W. Buol 2.1 Horizonation processes 11 2.2 Studies of soil genesis 12 2.3 Surface horizons 14 2.4 Subsurface horizons 15 2.5 Formation of structural features in soil 21 3 Soil phases: the inorganic solid phase 23 G. Jock Churchman 3.1 Description 23 3.2 Future prospects 44 4 Soil phases: the organic solid phase 45 Claire Chenu 4.1 Soil organic matter complex composition 46 vii
- 14. 4.2 Organomineral associations 51 4.3 Soil organic matter dynamics 54 5 Soil phases: the liquid phase 57 Randy A. Dahlgren 5.1 The liquid phase of soils 59 5.2 Methods of soil solution characterization 63 5.3 Application of soil solution studies to pedogenesis 66 5.4 Conclusions 73 6 Soil phases: the gaseous phase 75 Andrey V. Smagin 6.1 Gaseous components of soil 75 6.2 Sources, sinks and transport of gases in the soil 77 6.3 Agroecological evaluation of the soil air 84 6.4 Gases emissions and global ecological functions of the soil 85 7 Soil phases: the living phase 91 Oliver Dilly, Eva-Maria Pfeiffer and Ulrich Irmler 7.1 Physiological capabilities of soil organisms 92 7.2 The role of organisms for soil functions 95 7.3 Aerobic and anaerobic metabolisms in soil 96 7.4 The living phase indicates soil quality 98 7.5 Modification of biotic communities during soil degradation 100 8 The State Factor theory of soil formation 103 Ronald Amundson 8.1 The soil system 105 8.2 State factors 108 8.3 Importance of State Factor theory 111 9 Factors of soil formation: parent material. As exemplified by a comparison of granitic and basaltic soils 113 Michael J. Wilson 9.1 Mineralogical properties 114 9.2 Physical properties 116 9.3 Chemical properties 119 9.4 Conclusions 127 10 Factors of soil formation: climate. As exemplified by volcanic ash soils 131 Sadao Shoji, Masami Nanzyo and Tadashi Takahashi 10.1 Global climate and soil formation 132 viii Contents
- 15. 10.2 Influences of climatic factors on soil formation based on the studies on volcanic ash soils 137 11 Factors of soil formation: topography 151 Robert C. Graham 11.1 Topographic elements of landscapes 151 11.2 External factors mediated by topography 155 11.3 Pedogenic processes linked to topography 156 11.4 Topography-based models of soil distribution 162 12 Factors of soil formation: biota. As exemplified by case studies on the direct imprint of trees on trace metal concentrations in soils 165 François Courchesne 12.1 Approach 168 12.2 Case study 1: Trace metal distribution at the soil–root interface 169 12.3 Case study 2: Trace metal patterns in organic horizons 175 12.4 In conclusion 179 13 Factors of soil formation: time 181 Ewart A. FitzPatrick 13.1 Time for horizon differentiation 182 13.2 Soil development 183 13.3 Holocene soil formation 185 13.4 Soil age and progressive change 185 13.5 Time and soil classification 190 14 Soil formation on Earth and beyond: the role of additional soil-forming factors 193 Giacomo Certini and Riccardo Scalenghe 14.1 The anthropogenic factor 194 14.2 Other factors of pedogenesis 205 14.3 Extraterrestrial soils 208 15 Soil functions and land use 211 Johan Bouma 15.1 How to deal with future demands on our soils 212 15.2 To characterize soil functions better 215 15.3 Storylines: what can the soil tell us when we listen? 219 15.4 In conclusion 221 16 Physical degradation of soils 223 Michael J. Singer 16.1 Soil compaction 224 16.2 Sealing and crusting 227 16.3 Physical soil management 229 Contents ix
- 16. 16.4 Secondary effects 231 16.5 Conclusions 232 17 Chemical degradation of soils 235 Peter Blaser 17.1 Chemical soil degradation processes 236 17.2 Our duty 253 18 The future of soil research 255 Anthony C. Edwards 18.1 Soils and their buffering capacities 257 18.2 The soil resource 258 18.3 Soil phosphorus 258 18.4 Soil processes 260 18.5 Nitrogen cycling 261 18.6 The continued investigation of soil processes 263 Appendix: Naming soils and soil horizons 265 Stanley W. Buol, Giacomo Certini and Riccardo Scalenghe References 277 Index 303 x Contents
- 17. List of contributors Ronald Amundson Division of Ecosystem Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, USA Richard W. Arnold Fairfax, Virginia, USA Peter Blaser Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape, Birmensdorf, Switzer- land Johan Bouma Wageningen Unioversity and Research Centre, Wageningen, The Netherlands Stanley W. Buol Department of Soil Science, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, USA Giacomo Certini Dipartimento di Scienza del Suolo e Nutrizione della Pianta, Universitá degli Studi di Firenze, Firenze, Italy Claire Chenu Département AGER, UMR BIOEMCO, Thiverval Grignon, France G. Jock Churchman School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia François Courchesne Département de Géographie, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada Randy A. Dahlgren Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, University of California, Davis, USA xi
- 18. Oliver Dilly Lehrstuhl für Bodenschutz und Rekultivierung, Brandenburgische Technische Universität, Cottbus, Germany Anthony C. Edwards Peterhead, Scotland, UK Ewart A. Fitzpatrick Department of Plant and Soil Science, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK Robert C. Graham Department of Environmental Sciences, University of California, Riverside, USA Ulrich Irmler Ökologie-Zentrum, University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany Masami Nanzyo Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan Eva-Maria Pfeiffer Institute of Soil Science, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany Riccardo Scalenghe Dipartimento di Agronomia Ambientale e Territoriale, Universitá degli Studi di Palermo, Palermo Italy Sadao Shoji Sendai, Japan Michael J. Singer Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, University of California, Davis, USA Andrey V. Smagin Faculty of Soil Science, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia Tadashi Takahashi Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan Michael J. Wilson The Macaulay Institute, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK xii List of contributors
- 19. Preface Soil is a dynamic natural body occurring in the upper few metres of the Earth’s surface at the interface between the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere and geosphere. A soil is both an ecosystem in itself, and a critical part of the larger terrestrial ecosystem. From the earliest perceptions of soils as the organic enriched surface layer to today’s pedologic horizonation of profiles, there is a rich history of beliefs and understanding of this vital life-sustaining resource. In Chapter 1 changes in perceptions of soils and their classification are explored. Chapter 2 describes some of the specific reactions that are components of the soil-forming processes that transform geologic materials into recognizable pedologic features and horizons. Solids, along with the liquids and gases that fill pore spaces between the solids, compose the three-phase soil system. Chapter 3 treats the inorganic fraction of the solid phase, examining differences between primary minerals, derived directly from rocks, and secondary minerals, formed by pedogenic processes. Soil organic matter is discussed in Chapter 4. It is often a minor fraction of soil in quantitative terms, but exerts a major control on soil properties. Soil organic matter is complex, being a mixture of a multitude of different components. Organic matter may be tightly bound to clay surfaces by adsorption or physically protected by entrapment within aggregates. These associations modify the physicochemical and physical properties of the mineral phase and affect organic matter biodegradation rates. The liquid phase of soil is an aqueous solution of solids and gases. It is dynamic and highly sensitive to changes occurring in the soil ecosystem. As shown in Chapter 5, studies examining soil solution chemistry can be a powerful approach to elucidate pedogenic processes, equilibrium and kinetic factors, solute transport, soil fertility, nutrient cycling, and the fate and transport of environmental contaminants. Chapter 6 provides an overview of the composition and dynamics of the soil gaseous phase. This phase has received considerable attention in recent years due to the realization that soils act as a global source, xiii
- 20. sink and reservoir of gaseous substances that control the atmospheric composition and thus affect the global climate. Soil biota, the biologically active powerhouse of soil, includes an incredible diversity of organisms. It has been reckoned that there may be greater than 4 trillion organisms per kilogram of soil and more than 10 000 different species in a single gram of soil! Chapter 7 examines how soil biota plays a tremendous role in a number of soil properties and processes. Genetic soil science (pedology), espoused by Dokuchaev and colleagues in Russia in the late 1880s, described soils as independent natural bodies resulting essentially from interaction of five environmental factors: parent material, climate, topography, biota, and time. Chapter 8 outlines how Hans Jenny rigorously defined or redefined the meaning of these factors, and more importantly, added the new concept of the soil system, which when combined with these factors provides a powerful conceptual framework to study and understand soils. The influence of parent material as a soil-forming factor is an inverse function of time, making it especially important in young soils. Chapter 9 focuses on the impact of dissimilar parent materials – granite and basalt, the two most widely occurring igneous rocks on the Earth’s surface – on the physical and chemical properties of soils in the context of different weathering intensities. Climate, often the predominant soil-forming factor when considering soil development over the long term, is treated in Chapter 10. Temperature and precipitation are the most important components of climate. Temperature strongly influences the rates of chemical and biological reactions while soil moisture contributes to the dissolution, neoformation and transport of materials. Climate also determines the type and productivity of vegetation that, in turn, affect soil formation. Topography, referring to the configuration of the land’s surface, can have a major control on soil genesis. Chapter 11 examines the influence of topography on the disposition of energy and matter experienced by soils on the landscape. Slope, aspect, elevation and position modify the regional climate, causing soils to intercept more or less water and solar energy. Fine-scale topographic features may also influence pedogenesis by trapping aeolian dust, altering water infiltration patterns, modifying localized thermal regimes, and providing niches for biological activity. Chapter 12 deals with the effects of biota on soil formation. Two field studies that illustrate the direct impact of trees on the spatial distribution of trace metal concentrations in uncontaminated forest soils are described. The length of time needed to convert geological material into a soil varies, depending on the nature of the material and its interaction with climate, xiv Preface
- 21. topography and living organisms. A given period of time may produce large changes in one soil and have little effect on another soil. Some horizons differentiate before others, especially those at the surface which may take only a few decades to form in unconsolidated deposits. Middle horizons differentiate more slowly, particularly when a considerable amount of translocation of material or weathering is necessary, some taking several millennia to develop. Chapter 13 examines the evolution of soil properties over time. Pedogenesis is also possible in the absence of biota, as documented in some ice-free areas of the Arctic and Antarctic regions. On this basis, the physically and chemically weathered substrata of the Moon and Mars must be considered soils. Chapter 14 discusses extraterrestrial soils, as well as a variety of factors that can affect soil genesis on Earth, in addition to the five soil-forming factors first proposed by Dokuchaev. Soil functions and land uses are described in Chapter 15. Several ideas are provided that will allow soil scientists to be better prepared for collaboration in the interdisciplinary arena. The pressure of a constantly growing population along with its demands and activities increasingly threaten the soil as a slowly renewable resource. Major problems arise from the cumulative use of land for living space, infrastructure, food and industrial production. Chapter 16 examines the most common issues due to physical degradation of soil, while Chapter 17 discusses the various forms of chemical degradation and their causes. The non- linearity of many soil processes and the spatial and temporal variability associated with their kinetics is particularly worthy of further investigation. Some of the questions that more urgently need an answer from soil science are discussed in Chapter 18. Finally, this book includes an Appendix that provides: (a) the rudiments for naming genetic horizons, (b) a list of diagnostic horizons, properties and soil materials of the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB) with their Soil Taxonomy (ST) equivalents, (c) description of the 32 WRB Reference Soil Groups, and (d) an approximate correlation of the WRB Reference Soil Groups with the 12 Soil Orders of Soil Taxonomy. Preface xv
- 22. Acknowledgements G. J. Churchman thanks P. Rengasamy, R. C. Graham and M. J. Wilson, as reviewers, for useful suggestions regarding various drafts of this manuscript. A. V. Smagin thanks the Russian Science Support Foundation. R. C. Graham thanks K. Kendrick for advice on and drafting of the figures, and D. H. Yaalon and M. J. Wilson for reviewing the chapter. O. Dilly, E.-M. Pfeiffer and U. Irmler thank the Ecology-Centre of the University of Kiel and the Institute of Soil Science of the University of Hamburg for their support in the preparation of this chapter. S. Shoji, M. Nanzyo and T. Takahashi thank K. Minami, T. Makino, Y. Shirato, and R. J. Engel for their valuable information and suggestions. F. Courchesne thanks N. Kruyts, P. Legrand, S. Manna and V. Séguin because the data presented in his chapter are part of the work accomplished by these graduate students or post-doctoral fellows. Data were also contributed by R. R. Martin, S. J. Naftel, S. Macfie and W. M. Skinner. B. Cloutier-Hurteau, N. Gingras, H. Lalande and J. Turgeon are sincerely thanked for their help with field and laboratory work. A special thanks to M.-C. Turmel, for managing the information originating from all of the above. Financial support for the researchers cited was provided by the Fonds Québécois de la Recherche sur la Nature et les Technologies (FQRNT), the Metals in the Environment Research Network (MITE-RN) and the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). G. Certini and R. Scalenghe thank R. Amundson, R. A. Dahlgren, A. C. Edwards and B. Sundquist for critically reviewing the manuscript and T. Osterkamp for providing useful information. P. Blaser thanks I. Brunner, B. Frey, F. Hagedorn, J. Innes, J. Luster, W. Shotyk, and R. A. Dahlgren for fruitful discussions and critically reviewing the manuscript. Figures 17.1 and 17.2 were provided by I. Brunner, while Figure 17.3 was provided xvi
- 23. by B. Frey and C. Sperisen (Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, WSL). S. W. Buol, G. Certini and R. Scalenghe thank R. J. Engel for critically reviewing the Appendix. The Editors especially thank D. H. Yaalon, S. Francis, E. J. Pearce and J. Robertson Acknowledgements xvii
- 25. 1 Concepts of soils Richard W. Arnold In this chapter we will explore some changes of people’s perceptions of soils and their classification as background for the dominant concepts of today. Close your eyes for a moment and imagine that when you open them you are at the beginning of human time, a hunter and gatherer somewhere in the world, isolated, with barest of necessities, and you are hungry. By trial and error and stories passed on to you, you now know which plants and berries are okay to eat and how to stalk and kill animals and how to fish for your survival. As a keen observer you detect the location of specific plants and the common habitats and behaviour of the animals that become your food. You can’t go far from where you are because your source of protein is here – not somewhere else. One or two million years pass by almost unnoticed. Close your eyes again and when you open them imagine that you look beyond the bank of a river to small plots of irrigated land where grain is growing. Fish are still an important protein source but now with harvestable and storable grains you can easily carry protein with you. The world around you opens up to exploration and conquest. Ideas and technology are transferable to faraway places. It is known locally that some lands are better than others for producing grains and are easier to prepare and manage. Your observations reveal many new relationships – for instance, that the effort expended and the yields returned are geographic for the most part. Throughout the Holocene, starting 11–12 000 years BP, there has been evi- dence of increasing use of land for cultivated grains and fruits. From the early habitats at the edge of sloping uplands to the later migrations into the lower lying river and lake plains, there arose complex systems of irrigation enabling the blossoming of early civilizations. Egypt, the Middle East, India, China, and Soils: Basic Concepts and Future Challenges, ed. Giacomo Certini and Riccardo Scalenghe. Published by Cambridge University Press. ª Cambridge University Press 2006. 1
- 26. subtropical America – each with a remarkable history of use of land for agri- culture and other needs of society (Stremski, 1975; Krupenikov, 1992). The concept of land (and soil) during the global expansion of people seems to have been twofold: one was the suitability for growing specific plants, and the other was the energy required to prepare and use the land. In general, sandy soils were much easier to prepare but the yields were more difficult to maintain, whereas clayier soils were hard to prepare but the yields were much better. Thus properties of soils, functions of soils, and classification of soils have been around a long, long time. Soil, as we understand it today, is a concept of the human mind. From the earliest perceptions of soils as the organic enriched surficial layer to today’s pedologic horizonation of profiles there is a rich history of beliefs and understanding of the vital life-sustaining resource. The earthy material is real, it exists, you can touch it, feel it, stand on it, and dig in it, but defining it is far more complex because it can be what you want it to be. The Mother of life, a healer of sickness, a home of spirits, a geomembrane that sustains ecosystems of which we are a part – yes, soil surely is all of these and likely much more depending on your cultural background and heritage, education and training, and your personal experiences. An interesting aspect of thinking about soils is the uncertainty expressed as dichotomies, which have been present throughout humankind’s involvement with this surficial layer of ‘dirt’ that somehow is vital to our existence and survival. From sacred to profane, from beautiful to filthy, from productive to unresponsive – all are human perceptions of soils – brave and bold and highly subjective. Several references (Boulaine, 1989; Yaalon and Berkowicz, 1997) may help you get started in your search of vignettes of what the ‘ancients’ did. There is a natural tendency to look for the initiator – the first – the beginning – and then follow the paths of evolution, the birth and death of ideas. Why? Perhaps because we are also cyclic. 1.1 Some Greek and Roman concepts By the time of Greek civilization there had already been several millennia of records of humankind’s achievements and failures to control soils scattered among the languages of the Earth’s inhabitants. Let us pick up the story with Aristotle. He said that there were four elements formed and shaped from the same amorphous matter by a spirit endowed with reason. Fire, air, water and earth were in opposition to ether, the fifth element, which could not be perceived by the senses. These four elements were carriers of both active and passive qualifiers. Earth was characterized by opposing qualities, such as warm and cold, dry and wet, heavy and light, and hard and soft. 2 Richard W. Arnold
- 27. One of Aristotle’s students, Theophrastos (371–286 BC) gave soil the name of ‘edaphos’ to contrast it with earth (terrae) as a cosmic body. Edaphos was a layered system; a surface stratum of variable humus content, a fatty subsoil layer that supplied nutrients to grass and herb roots, a substratum that provided juices to the tree roots, and below was the dark realm of Tartarus. He described numerous relationships of soils and plants, and indicated six groups of lands suitable for different crops. The Greeks paid special attention to grapevines and Theophrastos even noted that an important way to increase productivity on stony soils was by transplantation of soil. Herodotus (c. 485–425 BC), an experienced traveller, considered soil as an important element in characterizing a place, noting for example that Egyptian soil was black and friable, and consisted of silt brought by the Nile from Ethiopia. In summary, the Greek intelligentsia concluded that soil was something special and important, had a profiled (layered) structure, fertility was its main quality, soil was spatially variable, plants were both wild and cultivated, and plant selection and cultivation were highly dependent on the properties of the soils. In ancient Rome, the problems of agronomy including technology and orga- nization of agriculture, and better land utilization were important. The nature of Italy is diverse and these features created a complicated mosaic of soil cover; thus it was necessary for Roman farmers to determine ‘which land likes what’. Cato, the senior (234–149 BC), was a government official, a big landlord, and traveled on assignment for the Senate. One of his major works, De Agricultura, appeared about 160 BC. In addition to knowing ‘which land likes what’, he also admonished that careful ploughing and application of dung and use of green manure crops was necessary to create those conditions that are best for plant development. Cato dealt at length with the problem of dung manure. He devel- oped a classification of arable soils based on farming utility with nine major groups that were subdivided into 21 classes. Varro (116–27 BC), an encyclopedia specialist, was assigned by Julius Caesar the task of organizing a public library in Rome and may have been the first to recognize the independent status of farming as a science. He also observed that it teaches us what should be sown on which field so that the earth will constantly produce the highest yields. Varro devised a classification recognizing as many as 300 types of soil using soil properties such as moisture, fattiness (texture), stoniness, colour and compaction. Maintaining productivity by rotating crops was important advice to farmers. Twelve volumes about agriculture by Columella (first century AD) covered the gamut of agronomy of the Mediterranean region. With regard to declining soil fertility he said that the guilt lies with people who deal with agriculture like a hangman with a prisoner, the lowliest among slaves. He developed a classification Concepts of soils 3
- 28. based on combinations of properties yet conceded that no one can know ‘in toto’ the whole diversity of soils. He conducted many field experiments, noting that science shows the learner the correct path. Stremski (1975) summarized Roman heritage by noting that Cato emphasized the suitability of soils for farming and their quantitative productive potential, Varro was concerned mainly with physical composition of soils, Columella emphasized physical properties, and Pliny the Elder focused on rocks and minerals as soil-forming materials. It is obvious that ancient knowledge of soils was extensive; however, agricultural soil science stagnated with the downfall of Rome only to be revitalized in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 1.2 The transition Close your eyes again and when you open them imagine that the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment have just finished. Here in the nineteenth century there abound a myriad of discipline-oriented concepts of soil based on the background and interests of scientists in different disciplines. The geologists refer to the straight-line function of rocks to soils; thus there were granite soils, limestone soils, shale soils, and so forth. Geomorphologists recognized upland soils, river valley alluvial soils, colluvial soils, mountain soils, steppe soils, desert soils and so forth. Botanists associated plant communities with soils; thus there were oak soils, prairie soils, pine soils, desert shrub soils, taiga soils, etc. Chemists denoted alkali soils, carbonaceous soils, base saturated soils, acid soils, and so on. Agriculturists referred to maize soils, wheat soils, pasture soils, fertile and infertile soils and many others. People concerned with mechanical behaviour recognized sticky soils, clayey soils, push soils, silty soils, one, two and three water buffalo soils, stony soils and so forth. Throughout this period there was no general agreement on how to recognize and refer to soils. One cultural attitude still prevailed – that of the lowly status of those who tended the fields. Serfs, peasants and slaves were associated with the menial, filthy aspects of preparing, tilling and harvesting produce from the earth. By association soil was not generally worthy of serious consideration. 1.3 The awakening As you open your eyes once more you suddenly stand in a gently waving sea of prairie grass looking across a seemingly infinite expanse of open landscape – the home of the famous Russian Chernozem. Severe droughts in 1873 and 1875 in this region caused untold misery and economic loss. In 1877 the Free Economic Society instituted the ‘Chernozem Commission’ and funded V. V. Dokuchaev, a 4 Richard W. Arnold
- 29. geologist at the University in St Petersburg, to conduct geologic-geographic investigations of the Chernozem. In the report of the second year of work he described soil generally as a mineral-organic formation of unique structure lying on the surface and continuously being formed as a result of the constant interaction of living and dead organisms, parent rock, climate and relief of the locality. He also stated that ‘soil exists as an independent body with a specific physiognomy, has its own special origin, and properties unique to it alone’ (Krupenikov,1992,p. 161).Dokuchaev’sclassicmonograph,‘RussianChernozem’ published in 1883, was the final report to the Free Economic Society about the Chernozem problem and it was defended as his doctorate dissertation. In 1882 the Nizhi Novgorod province requested Dokuchaev to conduct geo- logical and soil investigations for a rational assessment of land. The project continued from 1882 to 1886, was published in 14 volumes, and laid the foun- dation for the new school of genetic soil science. According to Dokuchaev the main aim of pedology was to study soils ‘as they are’ and to understand the regularities of their genesis, interrelations with the factors of soil formation, and geographical distribution. This was the principal difference from the prevailing notions of soil as just an object of agricultural activities. What did this really mean? It brought together many of the ideas about soil, restructured them into a set of integrated causal relationships, and provided a framework for research and understanding of soil as an independent science. 1.4 Genetic supremacy After blinking your eyes again, you realize that another hundred years has passed and that pedology has been constantly evolving (Bockheim et al., 2005). Genetic soil science has been accepted around the world and soil surveys have been underway in many countries for a number of years, associated mainly with agriculture and forestry. Pedologic and geologic concepts and terminology of soil horizons, solum, profile and weathering layers have come into existence and been adapted to meet both scientific and societal needs (Tandarich et al., 2002). The conservation of soils has usually been stimulated by catastrophic events related to their degradation. For example, the Dust Bowl in the USA in the 1930s spurred government action to create a Soil Conservation Service in the Depart- ment of Agriculture. Along with practices to mediate water and wind erosion, there were attendant actions to better manage water resources and maintain fertility. Advice about protecting soils was based on knowledge of the soil resources; consequently an expanded programme of soil survey was undertaken. The need for basic units of classification and for mapping was evident and pedological concepts prevailed. Concepts of soils 5
- 30. Based on the ‘neo-Dokuchaev paradigm of pedology’ that relates factors ! processes ! properties (Gerasimov as referenced by Sokolov, 1996, p. 253) there arose two major pedological concepts of soils. One is represented by the pedon, or arbitrary volume; the other by the polypedon, or small landscape unit (Fig. 1.1). The literature contains many terms for both small arbitrary volumes of soils and the spatial entities identified by named and defined kinds of soils (Arnold, 1983). A major Russian textbook based on Dokuchaev’s concepts stated that ‘the moisture and thermal regimes determine the dynamics of all phenomena in soils, i.e. they are fundamental in soil formation as a whole’ (Gerasimov and Glazovskaya, 1965, p. 147); however, neither soil temperature nor soil moisture state were considered or defined as ‘soil properties’. Climatic regimes, Fig. 1.1. A hierarchy of spatial relations of soil bodies commonly used in pedology. The profile, a thin rectangular section is the basis for soil description; the pedon represents a small sampling volume for property characterization; the polypedon represents a body having a set of similar properties in a landscape; and the landscape represents a portion of the pedosphere containing bodies of several kinds of soils. Adapted from Fig. 3.1 in Brady and Weil (1996). 6 Richard W. Arnold
- 31. by contrast, were commonly identified as important environmental conditions for specific kinds of soils in Russia. The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) ‘7th Approximation’ and subsequent editions of Soil Taxonomy (Soil Survey Staff, 1999) have described and defined soil temperature and soil moisture state as soil properties. Proper placement of soils in Soil Taxonomy has been achieved by defining patterns of soil temperature and soil moisture as regimes and using them to define specific taxonomic classes. This revolutionary deviation from other taxonomies recognized soils as dynamic entities in addition to being historical records of soil evolution by quantifying these properties. 1.5 Sampling volumes Arbitrary small volumes of soils are the basic source of information about the genesis and properties of soils (Holmgren, 1988). This information abstracts the central concept of a soil and the properties characterize a soil mainly for purposes of classification and correlation. Because soil-forming factors occupy space and their influence is over time, there is a concept of soil as a geographic entity whose recognition and dis- tribution depend on limits associated with defined kinds of soils and external features associated with the processes and properties of the dominant soil. The USDA Soil Survey Manuals of 1951, 1962 and 1993 highlighted a number of concepts guiding soil surveys in many parts of the world. Soil was thought of as the collection of natural bodies on the Earth’s surface, in places modified or even made by humans of earthy materials, containing living matter and sup- porting or capable of supporting plants out of doors. The upper and lower limits with non-soil were discussed but not quantified. Natural soil bodies were still considered to be the result of climate and living organisms acting on parent material, with topography or local relief exerting a modifying influence and with time required for soil-forming processes to act. Some confusion still existed about whether soil referred to the broader concept of a resource, or to its component members; that is, the soil, or kinds of soils. In the first version of a new Russian soil classification scheme (Shishov et al., 2001) soil was considered to be a system of interrelated horizons composing a genetic profile, which derived from the transformation of the uppermost layer of the lithosphere by the integration of soil-forming agents. A pedon was regarded as the smallest body of one kind of soil large enough to represent the nature and arrangement of horizons and variability in other prop- erties that are preserved in samples (Soil Survey Staff, 1999). It had a minimal horizontal area of 1 square metre but ranged to 10 square metres depending on the variability in the soil. In the USA, the pedon was originally considered to be a Concepts of soils 7
- 32. sampling unit within a polypedon that was a unit of classification, a soil body homogeneous at the series level, and big enough to exhibit all the soil character- istics considered in the description and classification of soils (Fig. 1.1). Because of the difficulty in fitting boundaries on the ground and the circular nature of the concept, the polypedon seldom served as the real thing to be classified. In the 1998 Keys to Soil Taxonomy (Soil Survey Staff, 1998) soil was referred to as a natural body that comprises solids (mineral and organic), liquid and gases that occur on the land surface, occupies space, and is characterized by one or both of the following: horizons, or layers, that are distinguishable from the initial material as a result of additions, losses, transfers and transformations of energy and matter; or the ability to support rooted plants in a natural environment. This expanded defi- nition of soil was meant to include soils of Antarctica where pedogenesis occurred but where the climate was too harsh to support the higher plant forms. For purposes of classification the lower limit of soil was set at 200 cm. The deposition, alteration, and layering of sediments helped explain discontinuities of parent materials. Recognition of in situ alteration such as weathering, hydrothermal influence or contamination expanded the concept of factor interactions. For the most part profile features were combined into models of soil formation involving the processes and events of geomorphology that had influenced and helped to shape the hypothesized features. As portrayed by the National Cooperative Soil Survey in the United States, a soil series was a group of soils or polypedons that had horizons similar in arrangement and in differentiating characteristics. The soil series had a relatively narrow range in sets of properties. Map unit delineations had commonly been identified as phases of the taxonomic soil series. This process attempted to bridge the gap between classification and geography as classification became more quantitative; however, the resolution by refining soil series definitions to fit the limits imposed by the hierarchical Soil Taxonomy resulted in the loss of much landscape information. After several decades of study the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) legend for the map of World Soil Resources was accepted at the 1998 World Congress of Soil Science as the basis for developing a World Reference Base to correlate soil classification systems with the intent to provide an updated legend, map and database for global soil resources. Although no real definition of soil was reiterated (FAO/ISRIC/ISSS, 1998), Reference Soil Groups were defined by a vertical combination of horizons within a defined depth and by the lateral organization of the soil horizons, or by the lack of them, at a scale reflecting the relief of a land unit. Soil horizons and properties were intended to reflect the expression of genetic processes that are widely recognized as occurring in soils (Bockheim and Gennadiyev, 2000). 8 Richard W. Arnold
- 33. 1.6 Landscape systems Several other approaches to describe and define geographic bodies of soils were summarized by Fridland (1976). Most of these concepts arose where detailed soil mapping was not the major soil survey activity, but where exploratory and other small-scale studies were being undertaken. The French school of pedology has refined and implemented many concepts related to soil landscape mapping (Jamagne and King, 2003). Soils were believed to result from transformations that affect the material of the Earth’s crust, and that successive climates and biological and human activities had been the agencies directly responsible. Their effect depended not only on the nature of the rock and their derived formations that have resulted from them, but also on landscape relief and the migration of matter in solution or in suspension in water. The overall result was that the original arrangement of geological material disappeared, leaving an entirely new arrangement of pedological origin. They maintained that the genetic conditions of soils resulted in a double differ- entiation: in their vertical arrangement and in their spatial distribution. The former corresponded to the common notion of soil profiles that are vertical sections through the nearly horizontal layers of altered parent materials (horizons) (Fig. 1.1), and the latter corresponded with the lateral arrangement of different types of horizons within the landscape, thus allowing for the definition of soil systems in space. The concept of soilscape or ‘pedolandscape’ was defined as the soil cover, or part of the cover, whose spatial arrangement resulted from the integration of a group of arranged soil horizons and other landscape elements. A soil system was a type of soilscape, a toposequence, where the differentiation was linked with a functioning process. A reference relief unit was a catchment or watershed area and the analysis of lateral transfers on, in and through the soils (vertically and laterally) had to be considered to understand the functioning of the landscape units. The systems could be open or closed relative to the flow of water and energy. Soil systems provided a framework to describe the process dynamics of the evolution of a landscape and its associated soils. 1.7 The new millennium Now as you open your eyes once more, a new millennium has begun. It is one full of uncertainty, especially concerning the extent to which humans have irrever- sibly altered their global habitat. It has been postulated that the achievements of the Industrial Revolution and the rapid changes of the Information Age are characteristic of the Anthropocene, the current geological period. In the 1997 edition of the Russian classification (Shishov et al., 2001) special attention was given to agrogenically and technogenically transformed soils. These Concepts of soils 9
- 34. soils were considered to be the result of soil evolution under the impact of human activities. When considering natural soil, the anthropogenically transformed soils formed an evolutionary sequence grading finally to non-soil surface formations. Recognition was based on morphology and did not include direct impacts on soil fertility. The initial proposal recognized Agrozems as soils whose profiles had been agrogenically modified providing a homogeneous topsoil more than 25 cm deep over diagnostic subsoils or parent material. Agrobrazems lacked a surface diag- nostic horizon due to erosion, deflation or mechanical cutting but had a specific surface horizon formed from subsoil or parent material. Abrazems, although similar to Agrobrazems, were recognized by the presence of a subsoil horizon or transition to parent material and were not suitable for cropping. In addition degraded soils due to chemical impacts, Chemdegrazems, could be recognized in any other class of soil. A special group of artificially constructed materials (non-soils) called Fabricats were suggested for trial use. They included Quasizems that had a humus- enriched surface layer placed over chaotic mixtures, Naturfabricats that lacked an organic matter enriched surface layer but consisted of human transported or mixed materials, Artifabricats that had substrates whose materials are absent in nature, and Toxifabricats that consisted of toxic, chemically active materials unsuitable for agriculture or forestry. Man as an important soil-forming factor is also reflected in the concepts of soils as functional entities now within the realm of the noosphere where man and nature are considered to be co-evolutionary factors of the biogeosphere. Ecological and environmental soil functions as described are human values associated with actual and potential behaviour of soil landscapes and their rele- vance to society. Although not far removed from the concepts attributed to use of the soil by ancients, the details are more focused and even global in scope. One perspective describes the function of soils in the pedosphere as they interact with associated spheres, namely the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere and the lithosphere (Arnold et al., 1990). These concepts portray the pedosphere as the active geomembrane interface that mediates energy fluxes and enables terrestrial life to exist (Ugolini and Spaltenstein, 1992). Another perspective describes major soil functions as: biomass producer and transformer; filter, buffer and reactor; habitat for macrobiota and microbiota; direct utilization as raw material and infrastructure support; and cultural and heritage aspects (GACGC, 1995). Both perspectives are significant to our understanding of soil quality, soil health, ecosystem sustainability, and the world of human-influenced soils. The chapters that follow describe major aspects of pedology and lead us to consider the challenges and changes of the concepts that will guide the future. 10 Richard W. Arnold
- 35. 2 Pedogenic processes and pathways of horizon differentiation Stanley W. Buol Soils acquire and maintain their characteristics and composition while under- going simultaneous alteration by an almost infinite number of biogeochemical reactions. The possible number of pedogenic events and combinations and interactions among them in soils is staggering. Although laboratory experiments can demonstrate that specific processes can produce specific soil features, the actual course of events within undisturbed soil will probably never be fully known because the cumulative impact of soil-forming processes spans such long periods of time relative to the lives of humans who observe those impacts. 2.1 Horizonation processes The entire volume of material defined as soil is but one layer within a larger context of the lithosphere. Soil is a layer of the lithosphere where minerals formed at high temperatures in the absence of water during the cooling of the Earth’s magma are being decomposed by water, and new minerals (secondary minerals) are being formed at lower temperatures. In soil, organic compounds formed in plants primarily from carbon taken from the air are mixed into the mineral material of the lithosphere. Soil can be conceptualized as an open system where material can be added, transformed, translocated and removed. General- ized processes responsible for the presence of identifiable horizons and other features within soil are outlined in Fig. 2.1. These processes include: 1 Energy exchange as the soil surface is daily heated by the sun and cooled by radiation to space each night. 2 Waterexchangeassoilisperiodicallywettedbyprecipitationanddriedaswaterevaporates and/or taken from the soil by plant roots and transpired through the plant leaves. Soils: Basic Concepts and Future Challenges, ed. Giacomo Certini and Riccardo Scalenghe. Published by Cambridge University Press. ª Cambridge University Press 2006. 11
- 36. 3 Biocycling depicts essential plant nutrients being taken from the soil, combined with carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, temporarily stored in vegetation and concentrated on or near the soil surface as organic compounds as the vegetation dies. Human activities that remove vegetation for use as food and fibre disrupt this cycle. 4 Erosion and deposition are processes engendered by the movement of wind and water that physically remove material from the surface of some soils and deposit soil material on the surface of other soils. 5 Weathering processes alter minerals that are unstable in the current soil environment. Some elemental components of the primary minerals are removed and some are restructured into secondary minerals as the soil wets and dries. 6 Leaching processes remove soluble organic and inorganic compounds from the soil as water percolates beyond the rooting depth of the vegetation present, negating the biocycling capability of the vegetation. 7 Lateral transfer of soluble and suspendable material takes place in the flow of groundwater between some adjacent soils. 8 Intrasolum translocation processes represent the movement of mineral and organic substances and particles within the soil. Most downward translocation is via the downward movement of water with subsoil accumulations developing as that movement is attenuated within the soil. Fauna and floral activity, shrink and swell movement of wetting and drying, freezing, earth tremors, violent shaking of rooted trees and human activities also physically move material within some soils. 2.2 Studies of soil genesis Soil-forming processes are assemblages of reactions occurring simultaneously or in sequence that create soil horizons and other morphological features. For a soil property to be present, it must be compatible with the existing environment Fig. 2.1. Schematic representation of the generalized processes that actively create horizons and other features in soil. 12 Stanley W. Buol
- 37. within the soil. This may be because current processes promote formation of the present soil property or because the soil property formed by past environments is stable enough to persist under present conditions. Generally, sequences of pro- cesses occur when the result of one process triggers the initiation of a subsequent process. The results of a given process may tend to maintain the soil in its current condition, or may tend to change the soil. No person has ever seen a mature soil form in toto. Pedogenic processes include gains and losses of materials from a soil body in accordance with the degradational, aggradational, or intermediate geomorphic character of the site, as well as translocations within the soil body. While appearing permanent in the short timeframe of human observations the volume of soil in the lithosphere is transient in space–time. Soil material dissolves, erodes or is buried over geologic timescales. All soils move vertically in space over time. Downward movement of soil occurs as erosion and dissolution remove material and in some locations upward movement occurs as material is deposited by flooding water, dust or volcanic depositions. Although the soil surface may appear stable during the short periods of human examination, the space–time dimension of soil is necessary to fully understand processes of soil formation (Buol et al., 2003). Two scientific approaches termed static pedology and dynamic pedology have been used in studies of soil genesis. The static approach proceeds by obtaining data from field observations and laboratory analysis of samples (NRCS, 1996) and then inferring what processes could have been capable of producing the observed soil properties. The dynamic approach is to monitor processes in situ, using apparatus such as suction-plate lysimeters that extract samples of percolate in host horizons (Ugolini, 2005). The dynamic approach also employs laboratory simulations using leaching columns and other devices. Whereas the dynamic approach measures some of the current processes, these processes may not accurately reflect the impacts of long-term processes and may miss entirely those processes that operated only sporadically in the past. A combination of these two approaches provides the most useful information about present, past and sporadic soil-forming processes. Most identifiable soil layers or horizons are formed in response to the movement of water into and out of the soil. Some soluble and suspendable components of soil eluviate in percolating water and accumulate to form distinct and contrasting horizons as downward water movement ceases and water is extracted via evapotranspiration. Some horizons form by the physical mixing of various organic and inorganic components. Soil horizons persist only if their components are stable or in steady state within ambient conditions. Horizons with unique quantities of elements, salts, organic or mineral compounds develop only if the necessary components are present in the media within which Pedogenic processes and horizonation 13
- 38. the soil is formed or can be formed and added to the soil from other components of the ecosystem. Two overlapping trends in soil development are horizonation and haploidi- zation. Simply stated, these are processes that tend to form layers or horizons within soil or to mix soil, respectively. Both trends are present in all soils. The degree to which certain soil properties are present represents the relative intensity of these contrasting forces. Mixing processes are more prevalent near the soil surface and produce surface horizons while translocation processes are more active in forming distinctive subsoil horizons. 2.3 Surface horizons Most surface horizons, called epipedons in Soil Taxonomy (Soil Survey Staff, 2006), result from the mixing of organic material and mineral material. Organic materials are formed as plants capture carbon as carbon dioxide from the air and combine that carbon with hydrogen, oxygen and the other life essential elements captured from the soil by their root systems. When plants and other organisms die the organic materials mix with mineral material of geologic origin in the soil. This process is known as biocycling. The result is a concentration of inorganic elements essential for plant growth and organic carbon compounds in surface horizons. Organic carbon compounds in soil are transient as soil microbes oxidize the carbon, returning it to the air as carbon dioxide. Organic carbon content in soil at any moment of time reflects a steady state condition between rate of organic additions and rate of organic decomposition reactions. Distinctive surface horizons or epipedons1 include: Mollic epipedons (mollic and voronic horizons) are thick, friable, dark coloured surface horizons containing more than 1% organic matter and having a base saturation of 50% or more of the cation exchange capacity (CEC) determined at pH 7. They form in calcium-rich mineral material usually under grass vegetation. The seasonal decomposition of the fibrous grass roots well below the soil surface assures that extremely high surface temperatures do not facilitate the rapid microbial decomposi- tion of the organic carbon compounds. Umbric epipedons (umbric horizons) are similar to mollic epipedons in organic matter content but have base saturations less than 50% of the CEC as determined at pH 7. They are most often formed in acid geologic material under several types of vegetation. Stability of organic matter content is favoured in soils where organic compounds are not subjected to high temperatures. Cool climatic conditions and landscape position that shield the soil surface from direct solar radiation favour their 1 Surface horizons are identified as epipedons in Soil Taxonomy (Soil Survey Staff, 2006). The approximate equivalents in the World Reference Base (IUSS Working Group WRB, 2006) are in parentheses. 14 Stanley W. Buol
- 39. formation. Umbric epipedons are often present in poorly drained soils. Water has a high heat capacity; thus soils with a high water content experience lower maximum daytime temperatures and have a slower rate of organic matter oxidation than equivalent drier soils. Ochric epipedons have organic matter contents too small or are too thin to meet the specific thickness requirements of umbric or mollic epipedons. Their low organic matter content can be related to low production of organic residues because of the slow growth of plants in moisture or temperature limited climates. They are commonly formed under tree vegetation where most organic additions are from the surface deposition of plant residue and organic additions below the surface are minimal. Histic epipedons (histic horizons) contain more than 20% to 30% organic matter. They are almost entirely present where the soil is saturated with water much of the year. Saturated conditions deprive the decomposing micro-organisms in the soil of the oxygen they need to completely decompose the organic residues deposited on the surface, and the high heat capacity of the water buffers the soil from high daily maximum soil temperatures, further slowing microbial decomposition. Plaggen epipedons (plaggic and terric horizons) have been formed by intensive human additions of manure and organic residues to form thick surface horizons with high organic matter content. Other distinctive surface horizons created by a shorter-term human activity in Soil Taxonomy are the anthropic epipedons. The World Reference Base (WRB) recognizes specific kinds of human-created surface horizons as: Anthric, formed by long-term ploughing, liming, fertilization, etc.; Irragric, formed by long-term application of muddy irrigation water; Hortic, formed by deeper than normal cultivation with intense fertilizer or manure application; Anthraquic, formed over a ‘puddled’ slowly permeable plough pan created by many years of cultivating crops, primarily rice, in flooded fields. 2.4 Subsurface horizons Preferential losses, accumulations and mineral transformations of specific soil components are responsible for most subsoil horizons. Water and the physical movement of water is the primary agent for these intrasolum processes. Water movements in soil are dynamic and sporadic events largely controlled by weather events. Spatial differences result as relief (slope) of the land and affect infiltration of water. Most water enters the soil through the surface. Within the soil water attains its greatest downward velocity in the larger pores. Fast-moving water suspends small clay and organic particles and soluble components of both inorganic minerals and organic compounds. After infiltration ceases, the water from the larger pores is distributed via capillary action into smaller pores and Pedogenic processes and horizonation 15
- 40. some suspended particles are filtered and deposited on the walls of the larger pores. The water from most rain events does not penetrate to a great depth and terminates in a subsoil layer also occupied by plant roots. Between rainfall events plants extract water from those pores between about 0.01 and 0.0002 mm in diameter. As plants extract water the concentration of those ions dissolved in the water and not ingested into the roots is increased and they precipitate into solid crystal structures. The type of crystal formed depends on the ions present. For example, if there is an abundance of Ca2þ and H2CO3 present in the soil, CaCO3 will form in the subsoil as the vegetation extracts water. As Si and Al ions dissolved from primary silicate minerals are concentrated in the soil solution they form aluminium silicate clays, either 1:1 clays if in equal proportion or 2:1 clays if Si ions are more abundant than Al ions. The upper part of the soil is subjected to more downward movement of water and tends to lose soluble and suspendable material (eluviation processes) while at somewhat greater depths soil (‘subsoil’) tends to accumulate suspended and soluble materials (illuviation processes). Excepting soil in the most arid climates some water sporadically moves below the rooting depth of plants, causing some chemical alteration of minerals present and loss from the entire soil. Plants do not remove water at the same rate throughout the year and in temperate latitudes more water leaches below the rooting depth in the winter when vege- tation is not actively transpiring. However, whenever temperatures are sufficient for active transpiration, plants daily remove water from the soil. Rainfall events are spasmodic assuring some drying, and therefore concentration of suspended and soluble constituents in the soil solution takes place within the rooting volume of the plants in almost all but the most continuously saturated soils. Specific subsoil horizons are identified by the properties they acquire from the relative intensity of the eluviation, illuviation and leaching processes that have been and continue to be active at a specific depth. Dissolution, suspension and subsequent deposition of a particular element or compound depend on the abundance of that material in the soil, i.e. the parent material. If the parent material does not contain an adequate supply of the element needed to form a secondary mineral that mineral will not form. Also, pedoturbation processes such as creep movement of soil material on steep slopes, physical disruptions by soil fauna or extensive expansion and contraction upon wetting and drying may so rapidly mix soil material that subsoils of substantial illuvial accumulations will not form. Subsoil horizons with specific properties and characteristics are defined in modern soil classification systems. 16 Stanley W. Buol
- 41. Argillic horizons (argic horizons) have 1.2 times as much clay as horizons above and are formed by the illuviation of clay and its filtering on the walls of large pores as the percolating water is drawn into smaller pores by capillarity. This process is also known as lessivage with the formation of clay skins, also known as clay films or tonhatchen (Fig. 2.2). This process appears most active when new clay is being formed. Clay that has been present in the soil for a long period of time is often coated with iron oxide and appears less subject to illuviation (Rebertus and Buol, 1985). Kandic horizons (some ferralic horizons) are like argillic horizons but contain primarily kaolinitic clay and have apparent CEC less than 16 cmolc þ kg-1 clay at pH 7. The lessivage process is slow in soils with kandic horizons due to the lack of weatherable primary minerals from which new clay can form and low suspendability of clay that is coated with iron oxides. Clay skins are rare, apparently due to slow formation and their homogenizing into the soil matrix by pedoturbation processes. Albic horizons (albic horizons) are light coloured horizons below dark coloured epipedons and above several of the other subsoil horizons. Albic horizons are most often described as E horizons but also meet specific colour criteria. They form as percolating water suspends clay and organic particles and transports them to deeper horizons. They are usually formed under tree vegetation and far enough below the soil surface that little organic material is mixed into the E horizon. Calcic horizons (calcic horizons) are accumulations of calcium carbonate. Carbonates are dissolved as bicarbonate from mineral sources during the percolation of water and precipitate as carbonate-rich subsoil horizons as plant roots or evaporation-extract soil water. They are common in arid climates with little leaching when carbonate minerals Fig. 2.2. Photomicrograph of clay skin surrounding a large void in the argillic horizon in Wisconsin, USA. Pedogenic processes and horizonation 17
- 42. are present in the parent material or from dust. Hard calcic horizons usually containing more silicon are known as petrocalcic horizons (petrocalcic horizons). Spodic horizons (spodic horizons) are formed by the aluminium and iron eluviated from O, A, and E horizons and the immobilization of these metals in short-range-order complexes with organic matter, and in some cases silica, in the B horizon (Mokma and Evans, 2000). The process is driven largely by the production of organic acids from the decomposition of plant materials deposited on the soil surface. Ugolini et al. (1977) found direct evidence from lysimeter studies of the migration of organic matter particles (0.5–1.5 mm in diameter) in the solum and of mineral particles (2–22 mm in diameter) below that. In addition to aluminium and iron, monovalent cations and most Ca2þ and Mg2þ ions are leached down into underlying horizons or to groundwater, along with silica (Singer and Ugolini, 1974; Zabowski and Ugolini, 1990). The translocation of silica provides a mechanism by which allophane or imogolite forms in the spodic horizon (Dahlgren and Ugolini, 1989a, 1991). The capacity of some spodic horizons to sorb dissolved organic carbon may be due to the presence of imogolite (Dahlgren and Marrett, 1991). Cambic horizons (cambic horizons) are horizons that have some alteration of the primary minerals present in the parent material or the replacement of original structure in the parent material with pedogenic soil structure. The removal of iron, carbonate or gypsum when present in the parent material is the criterion for identifying some cambic horizons. Cambic horizons may have small accumulations of clay, iron or organic matter but such illuvial accumulations are present in insufficient quantities to qualify for argillic or spodic horizons. Gypsic horizons (gypsic horizons) contain 5% or more gypsum that accumulates as percolating water dissolves primary gypsum minerals which then recrystalize as plants extract water from the subsoil. Dense gypsic horizons where the material does not slake in water are known as petrogypsic horizons (petrogypsic horizons). Natric horizons (natric horizons) contain more than 15% sodium or more exchangeable sodium plus magnesium than calcium on the cation exchange capacity. They form from the accumulation of Na2CO3 or hydrolysis of sodium minerals (Chadwick and Graham, 2000). Oxic horizons (some ferralic horizons) are sandy loam or finer textured and almost always present in subsoil material that has been previously exposed to weathering in other soils and during fluvial transport to its present site (Buol and Eswaran, 2000). Silica has been lost and 1:1 (kaolinite) clays and gibbsite predominate in the clay fraction. Apparent cation exchange capacity is less than 16 cmolc þ kg1 clay at pH 7. The sand fraction contains less than 10% primary minerals that can decompose and provide ions for the formation of new clay. The clay present in surface horizons of soils with oxic horizons is not easily dispersed in water and there is little or no lessivage and clay skin formation. In the absence of clay illuviation the clay content in the oxic horizon is nearly the same as in surface horizons. Most oxic horizons have a strong grade fine granular structure (Fig. 2.3). Iron oxides are considered responsible for stabilizing the granular structure. 18 Stanley W. Buol
- 43. Salic horizons (salic horizons) develop in arid climates where there is little or no leaching and soluble salts accumulate near the soil surface. The soil water accumulates soluble salts from the dissolution of geologic material rich in soluble minerals. Most salic horizons form in depressional areas of the landscape where the groundwater is near the soil surface or run-off water accumulates and evaporates. Salic horizons are frequently created by irrigation with salty water. Sulfuric horizons (thionic horizons) are formed as sulphates accumulated in some horizons that are saturated with brackish water (Fanning and Fanning, 1989). 2.4.1 Subsoil features related to chemical reduction Subsoil conditions resulting from the reduction and removal of iron oxides are known as aquic conditions in Soil Taxonomy and gleyic properties in the World Reference Base. As iron-bearing silicate minerals such as biotite decompose in soil the iron combines with oxygen to form iron oxides. The most abundant iron oxides are goethite and haematite. Mixtures of these oxides are responsible for the yellow and reddish colours present in many subsoil horizons (Scheinost and Schwertmann, 1999). When a subsoil horizon is saturated with water for pro- longed periods of time the microbes in the soil that require oxygen for respiration first use all the oxygen dissolved in the water and then gain oxygen by reducing nitrate (NO3 – ), manganese oxides (Mn2O3), and iron oxides (Fe2O3). The iron in the iron oxides is reduced from ferric ions (Fe3þ ) to ferrous ions (Fe2þ ) that are soluble and readily leach from the soil. As a result the grey colour of the silicate minerals becomes the predominant colour of the subsoil. Fig. 2.3. Photomicrograph of granular structure in an oxic horizon in Brazil. Pedogenic processes and horizonation 19
- 44. To engender reduction in the subsoil it is necessary to have saturation that prevents air from entering the soil pores and providing oxygen to the actively respiring micro-organisms in the soil. Micro-organisms require a biologically digestible form of carbon and suitable temperatures for active respiration. A lack of warmth or a limited amount of digestible carbon can slow the process of reduction in saturated soil; thus the length of time that a soil must be saturated before iron is reduced is somewhat variable. Also, contents of nitrate and man- ganese oxides that reduce prior to the iron oxides contribute oxygen and a flow of oxygen containing water renders determination of the exact amount of time required for iron reduction problematic. The processes of reduction in soil are known as gleization. Greyish colours of two or less chroma that result when iron oxides are removed from soil are often known as ‘gley’ (glei) colours. Gley colours may dominate a subsoil horizon but more frequently subsoil horizons undergo alternating periods of saturation and aeration as the water table rises and falls in response to rainfall events and transpiration demands. The dynamic shift from reducing to oxidizing conditions results in a spatial migration of iron forming a mottled pattern of gley areas where iron is removed and more yellowish to red coloured areas where iron oxides have accumulated within the horizon (Fig. 2.4). The presence of ‘gley’ colours is widely accepted as an indication of saturation during some period of time each year. When a horizon with a mottled colour pattern pictured in Fig. 2.4 is exposed and hardens upon repeated wetting and drying it is recognized as plinthite Fig. 2.4. Photograph of a mottled colour pattern in the subsoil horizon in North Carolina, USA. 20 Stanley W. Buol
- 45. (plinthic horizon). If such a horizon is indurated in place within the soil it is identified as a petroferric contact (petroplinthic horizon) often referred to as ironstone or laterite. 2.5 Formation of structural features in soil Structural development and expression in soil horizons often referred to as pedogenic structure involves a combination of processes and mechanisms. These processes are related to shrink–swell phenomena associated with wetting and drying cycles in soils with low shrink–swell potential (Southard and Buol, 1988). During periods of desiccation in confined subsoil horizons soil compression takes place because of capillary tension as water is withdrawn from the larger soil voids. The capillary tension causes cracks to form in the soil mass. The crack walls become incipient ped faces. As the soil material again becomes wetted it swells. The protruding points on the incipient ped faces make contact first and shearing forces are focused at these points of contact with coarser particles. Sand grains are forced away from the pressure zone and flat clay particles are concentrated and forced into a parallel orientation on the ped face. These modifications cause the soil to crack in the same place upon subsequent drying, thereby increasing the stability of the peds and resulting in recognizable blocky structure. These same shrink–swell processes can contribute to the conversion of rock fabric to soil fabric (Frazier and Graham, 2000). Wetting and drying without the confining weight of overlying soil favours granular structure in surface horizons. As unconfined soil material dries the surface tension of water tends to form spherical aggregates. Most surface hor- izons are also well populated by fungi and other microbes associated with living and dead organic materials. Threadlike fungi associated with plant roots are known to secrete the sticky sugar protein glomalin that along with several other microbial exudates serve to temporally stabilize the granular aggregates. Physical disruption of surface horizons reduces the fungi activity and aggregate stability is decreased as the stabilizing organic compounds are decomposed. Pedogenic processes and horizonation 21
- 47. 3 Soil phases: the inorganic solid phase G. Jock Churchman Inorganic solid phases in soils can generally be described as minerals. In soils, rocks provide the raw (i.e. ‘parent’) materials for minerals in soils. Minerals may derive directly from rocks, with little or no chemical or structural changes, although physical changes, e.g. comminution, commonly occur. In this case they are referred to as primary minerals. However, many of the minerals that are of most importance for soil properties are secondary. While these have formed from rock minerals under the influence of soil-forming processes, principally weath- ering, they usually comprise different phases from those present in the rocks. 3.1 Description Table 3.1 comprises a compilation of (a) the characteristics and properties of inorganic solid phases that occur most commonly in soils and (b) the nature of their processes of formation and transformation and their occurrence in soils. The information in Table 3.1 is extracted from Dixon and Weed (1989), Churchman and Burke (1991), Churchman et al. (1993, 1994), Churchman (2000), Olson et al. (2000), and Dixon and Schulze (2002), and is discussed as follows under the various categories in the table. 3.1.1 Characteristics and properties Primary and secondary minerals Although there is little doubt that most occurrences of those designated as pri- mary minerals in Table 3.1 have a direct origin as the residue of minerals that formerly constituted rocks, some – for example quartz, micas, calcite and the zeolite analcime – may also form pedogenically. In the case of those designated as Soils: Basic Concepts and Future Challenges, ed. Giacomo Certini and Riccardo Scalenghe. Published by Cambridge University Press. ª Cambridge University Press 2006. 23
- 53. secondary minerals, their ultimate origin may be confused by the fact that many sedimentary rocks are composed of the products of one or more earlier processes of weathering and perhaps also subsequent diagenesis, leading to the formation of secondary minerals that are thereby recycled as detritus into new soils. The mineral residues of such rocks are strictly secondary only in relation to their original igneous and metamorphic rock sources. Minerals are classified as sec- ondary in Table 3.1 when there is clear evidence for their formation by pedogenic processes and when they do not also occur commonly as primary minerals. Structural type Except in some unusual cases, e.g. calcareous soils, in which calcite and/or dolomite are dominant, silicates comprise the predominant mineral components of most soils by weight and volume. Silicates are predominant among primary minerals. Silicates differ in their type according to the number of oxygen atoms that are shared for each silicon atom. Table 3.2 identifies the weakest bond in each of the major types of silicates in soils. The alteration of a mineral begins by the disruption of its weakest bond. Almost all secondary silicates are phyllosilicates, and the various possible structures for these are given in Fig. 3.1. Secondary phyllosilicates are often known as ‘clay minerals’. Related phases or other names While some of the phases within this category in Table 3.1 are less common in soils than the relevant main phase, many are rare, or have not even been reported, in soils. Some names that are given are alternative names for minerals, e.g. chinochlore, endellite, metahalloysite, limonite. Many of these have been discredited for use in the scientific literature. Other names given are more general descriptions, e.g. plagioclases, pedogenic chlorite, hydroxy-interlayered vermiculite (HIV). Common particle sizes in soils In the main, primary minerals occur in soils as coarse, i.e. sand- or silt-size particles,wheresand-sizecovers0.02–2.0mmequivalentsphericaldiameter(e.s.d.) and silt-size 0.002–0.02 mm, i.e. 2–20 mm. Occasionally, primary minerals occur as gravels, i.e. 2.0 mm. Table 3.1 records that some primary minerals may also occur as clay-size particles. These include chrysotile, pyrophyllite, talc, (trioc- tahedral) vermiculite, chlorite and rutile. Secondary minerals occur predominantly as clay-size particles. Very many secondary minerals occur in particles that are finer than 2 mm with some particles being 0.02 mm. Soil phases: the inorganic solid phase 29
- 54. Surface areas As a first approximation, surface area bears an inverse relationship to the size of particles. Broadly speaking, minerals that occur mainly as sand- or silt-size particles have a negligible surface area. Hence almost all of the surface area of a Fig. 3.1. View of structures of major clay mineral groups. From Bailey (1980). Reproduced by permission of the Mineralogical Society, London. Table 3.2. The nature of bonding and weakest bonds in the most common types of silicates in soils Name Structural type Formula Shared O per Sia Weakest bonds Examples Tectosilicates Framework SiO2, with Al substitution 4 Cations (K+ , Na+ , Ca2+ ) Feldspars SiO2 4 Si-O bonds Quartz Phyllosilicates Sheet Si2O5 2 , with Al substitution, joined to Al-, Fe-, Mg-hydroxy octahedra in layers 3 Via interlayer cations, usually K+ Micas Inosilicates Single chains SiO3 2 , with Al substitution 2.5 Via divalent, and other, cations Pyroxenes Double chains Si4O11 6 , with Al substitution 2 Via divalent, and other, cations Amphiboles Nesosilicates Isolated tetrahedra SiO4 2 0 Via divalent cations Olivines a Cyclosilicates (e.g. tourmaline) have two O bonds per Si and sorosilicates (e.g. epidote) have one O bond per Si, but neither type is common in soils (see Table 3.1). 30 G. Jock Churchman
- 55. Other documents randomly have different content
- 56. has gone beyond a kind of impulse and movement. But we may effect something more important in the coming year. My wife has taken an active interest in the Magdalen Hospital, the Lying-in Hospital, and the orphanages of various kinds. We want money, zeal, belief; and knowledge in many quarters. (Lord Napier to Miss Nightingale.) Madras, Sept. 3 [1868]. I am truly happy to find that I can do something to please you and that you will count me as a humble but devoted member of the Sanitary band, of your band I might more properly say! Do you know that I was sent by Lord Stratford to salute and welcome you on your first arrival at Scutari and that I found you stretched on the sofa where I believe you never lay down again? I thought then that it would be a great happiness to serve you, and if the Elchi would have given me to you I would have done so with all my heart and learned many things that would have been useful to me now. But the Elchi would never employ any one on serious work who was at all near himself, so I spent the best years of my life at a momentous crisis doing nothing when there was enough for all! But if I can do something now it will be a late compensation … [report on various sanitary measures then in hand]. I have read the beautiful account of “Una” last evening driving along the melancholy shore. I send it to Lady Napier, who is in the Hills. I will write again soon, as you permit and even desire it, and I am ever your faithful, grateful and devoted Servant, Napier. (Lord Napier to Miss Nightingale.) Madras, June 3 [1869].[171] … Now I have a good piece of news for you. We are framing a Bill for a general scheme of local taxation in this Presidency, both in municipalities and in villages, and the open country, to provide for three purposes—local roads, primary education, and Sanitation—such as improvement of wells, regulation of pilgrimages and fairs, drainage, c. It will be very unpopular I fear in the first instance, for the people wish neither to be taught nor cured, but I think it is better on the whole to force their hands. We are driven to it, for I see clearly that we must wait a long time for help from the Supreme Government.… I was pleased and flattered to be mentioned by you in the same sentence with Lord Herbert. Indeed I am not worthy to tie the latchet of his shoe, but there are weaknesses and illusions which endure to the last, and I suppose I never shall be indifferent to see myself praised by a woman and placed in connection, however remote, with a person of so
- 57. much virtue and distinction. You shall have the little labour that is left in me.[105] A subject on which Miss Nightingale wrote both to Lord Napier and to Lord Mayo was the inquiry into cholera in India ordered by the Secretary of State in April 1869. She had made the proposition many months before. Indian medical officers were absorbed in propounding theories; Miss Nightingale wanted first an exhaustive inquiry into the facts. Even if such an inquiry did not establish any of the rival theories, it must lead, she thought, to much sanitary improvement. Sir Bartle Frere strongly supported the idea, and it was arranged that the War Office Sanitary Committee should make the suggestion and elaborate the scheme of procedure to be followed in India. The Committee meant for such a purpose Dr. Sutherland, and Dr. Sutherland meant in part Miss Nightingale. Sir Bartle Frere constantly wrote to her to know when the India Office might expect the Instructions, and Miss Nightingale as constantly applied the spur to Dr. Sutherland. On April 3 she delivered an ultimatum: “Unless the Cholera Instructions are sent to me to-day, I renounce work and go away.” At last they arrived, and her friend received a withering note: “April 13, 1869. I beg leave to remark that I found a letter of yours this morning dated early in Dec., which I mean to show you, in which, with the strongest objurgations of me, you told me that you could not come because you intended to get the Cholera Instructions through by December 12, 1868. My dear soul, really Sir B. Frere could not have known the exhausting labour he has put you all to; to produce that in four months must prove fatal to all your constitutions! He is an ogre.” Dr. Sutherland's Instructions are admirably exhaustive, and may well have taken some time to prepare. The remaining stages of the affair were quick, and the Secretary of State's dispatch went out to the Government of India on April 23, followed by private letters from
- 58. Miss Nightingale. The Sanitary Blue-books of successive years contain copious reports and discussions upon this “Special Cholera Inquiry.” It furnished much material for scientific discussion, by which Miss Nightingale sometimes feared that what she regarded as the essence of the matter was in danger of being overlaid. She and the Army Sanitary Committee took occasion more than once to point out that “whatever may be the origin of cholera, or whatever may ultimately be found to be its laws of movement, there is nothing in any of the papers except what strengthens the evidence for the intimate relation which all previous experience has shown to exist between the intensity and fatality of cholera in any locality and the sanitary condition of the population inhabiting it.”[106] The origin of cholera is now said to be a micro-organism identified by Koch, but the laws of its movement and activity remain inscrutable. Meanwhile, all subsequent experience has confirmed the doctrine which Miss Nightingale continually preached, that the one protection against cholera consists in a standing condition of good sanitation. IV At the very time when Dr. Sutherland was hard at work upon the Cholera Instructions, Miss Nightingale heard a report (on good authority) which filled her with anger and consternation. Mr. Gladstone was engaged in cutting down the Army Estimates; the Army Medical Service was believed to be marked for retrenchment, and the War Office Sanitary Commission for destruction. When she told this to Dr. Sutherland, he took the matter with nonchalance and said (as men are sometimes apt to say in such cases, especially if there is a woman to rely upon) that he did not see that anything could be done. Very different was the view taken by Miss Nightingale, when she contemplated, not merely the interruption of Dr. Sutherland's useful
- 59. work,[107] but the possibility of all Sidney Herbert's work being undermined. Nothing to be done indeed! There was everything to be done! She could write to the Prime Minister himself. She could write to Lord de Grey (Lord President). She could get this friend to approach one Minister, and that friend to approach another. She could even claim a slight acquaintance, and write to Mr. Cardwell (Secretary for War). She could write to all her friends among the Opposition and give them timely notice of the wicked things intended by their adversaries. She ultimately wrote to Lord de Grey, enclosing a letter which he was to hand or not, at his discretion, to Mr. Cardwell. The intervention was successful, and Lord de Grey asked her for Memoranda to “post him up” in the work of the Army Sanitary Commission and in the Sanitary Progress in India. Lord de Grey interceded with Mr. Cardwell also on behalf of the Army Medical School and it was spared. The Army Sanitary Committee was not touched, and for nearly twenty years more (till 1888) Dr. Sutherland continued his work upon it. Miss Nightingale's reports submitted to Lord de Grey are summarized in a letter to M. Mohl (Nov. 21, 1869):—“I am all in the arithmetical line now. Lately I have been making up our Returns in a popular form for one of the Cabinet Ministers (we are obliged to be very ‘popular’ for them—but hush! my abject respect for Cabinet Ministers prevails). I find that every year, taken upon the last four years for which we have returns (1864–7), there are, in the Home Army, 729 men alive every year who would have been dead but for Sidney Herbert's measures, and 5184 men always on active duty who would have been ‘constantly sick’ in bed. In India the difference is still more striking. Taken on the last two years, the death-rate of Bombay (civil, military and native) is lower than that of London, the healthiest city of Europe. And the death-rate of Calcutta is lower than that of Liverpool or Manchester! [108] But this is not the greatest victory. The Municipal Commissioner
- 60. of Bombay writes[109] that the ‘huddled native masses clamorously invoke the aid of the Health Department’ if but one death from cholera or small-pox occurs; whereas formerly half of them might be swept away and the other half think it all right. Now they attribute these deaths to dirty foul water and the like, and openly declare them preventable. No hope for future civilization among the ‘masses’ like this!” V In December 1869 Miss Nightingale made a new friend. Lord Napier of Magdala[110] was passing through London, and wrote to Sir Bartle Frere saying that it “would make him very happy if he could have the privilege of paying his respects to Miss Nightingale before he left.” Sir Bartle begged Miss Nightingale to grant the favour, as Lord Napier was devoted to their cause and was likely to be employed in India again— as quickly came to pass, for in the following month he was appointed Commander-in-Chief.[111] Lord Napier called on December 14, in order (as he wrote to her in making the appointment) “to have an opportunity of saying how much I have felt indebted to you for the assistance that your precepts and example gave to all who have been concerned with the care of soldiers and their families.” He spent some hours with her, and she was charmed with him. “I felt sure,” wrote Sir Bartle Frere (Dec. 23), “that you would like Lord Napier of Magdala. He always seemed to me one of the few men fit for the Round Table.” A long note which she recorded of the conversation shows how congenial it must have been to her, for Lord Napier talked with strong feeling of the importance and the practicability of improving the moral health of the British soldier. The administrators and the men of action always appealed to her more than the politicians, and Lord Napier of Magdala was now added to her list of heroes. “When I look at these
- 61. three men (tho' strangely different[112])—Lord Lawrence, Lord Napier of Magdala and Sir Bartle Frere—for practical ability, for statesmanlike perception of where the truth lies and what is to be done and who is to do it, for high aim, for noble disinterestedness, I feel that there is not a Minister we have in England fit to tie their shoes—since Sidney Herbert. There is a simplicity, a largeness of view and character about these three men, as about Sidney Herbert, that does not exist in the present Ministers. They are party men; these three are statesmen. S. Herbert made enemies by not being a party man; it gave him such an advantage over them.” Lord Napier of Magdala came to see Miss Nightingale again in the following year (March 18, 1870), spending in conversation with her his last hours before leaving London to take up his appointment in India. She and Sir Bartle Frere attached high importance to this interview. Lord Napier was a convinced sanitarian. He was bent upon introducing many reforms in the treatment of the soldiers. He believed in the possibility of improving both their moral and physical condition, by means of rational recreation and suitable employment. Sir Bartle Frere suggested to Miss Nightingale that after seeing the Commander-in-Chief she should write to the Viceroy so as to prepare his mind for what Lord Napier would propose. Lord Napier himself begged her to do so. “Everything in India,” he said to her, “depends on what is thought in England, and it was you who raised public opinion in England on these subjects.” Preparation of the Viceroy's mind was held to be the more necessary because a letter, lately received by Miss Nightingale from him, seemed to show that his sanitary education was by no means complete. So Mr. Jowett's “Governess of the Governors of India” took her pupil again by the hand, and, with Dr. Sutherland's assistance, drew up a further Memorandum on the Indian sanitary question at large. Referring him to the Royal Commission's Report, she pointed out that the causes of ill-health among the troops were many, and that there was no single
- 62. panacea; that if other causes were not concurrently removed, the erection of new barracks could not suffice; that fever may lurk beneath and around “costly palaces” (for so Lord Mayo had called some of the new barracks) even as around hovels; that expense incurred in all-round sanitary improvement can never be costly in the sense of extravagant, because it is essentially saving and reproductive expenditure; and so forth, and so forth.[113] Miss Nightingale, before sending her letter, submitted it to Sir Bartle Frere (March 25). “I have nothing to suggest,” he said, “in the way of alteration, and only wish that its words of wisdom were in print, and that thousands besides Lord Mayo could profit by them. They are in fact exactly what we want to have said to every one connected with the question from the Viceroy down to the Village Elder.” Sir Bartle begged her to consider whether she could not write something to the same effect which would reach the latter class. Mr. Jowett had suggested something of the sort a few years before. “Did it ever occur to you,” he had written (March 1867), “that you might write a short pamphlet or tract for the natives in India and get it translated? That would be a curious and interesting thing to do. When I saw the other day the account of Miss Carpenter in India, I felt half sorry that it was not you. They would have worshipped you like a divinity. A pretty reason! you will say. But then you might have gently rebuked the adoring natives as St. Paul did on a similar occasion, and assured them that you were only a Washerwoman and not a Divine at all; that would have had an excellent effect.” Presently she found an opportunity of doing something in the kind that Mr. Jowett and Sir Bartle Frere had suggested. Meanwhile, Lord Mayo had introduced Dr. J. W. Cunningham to Miss Nightingale, and they became great allies. When he returned to resume his duties as “Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of
- 63. India,” he corresponded with Miss Nightingale regularly, telling her where things were backward and where a word in season from her would be helpful. In every question she took the keenest interest, sparing no pains to forward, so far as she could, every good scheme that was laid before her. In 1872 Mr. W. Clark, engineer to the municipality of Calcutta, came to see her about great schemes of water-supply and drainage. She obtained an introduction to Sir George Campbell, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, in order to commend to his notice Mr. Clark's plans. For many years she was thus engaged in correspondence with sanitary reformers and officials in various parts of India, sending them words of encouragement when they seemed to desire and deserve it, words of advice when, as was frequently the case, they invited it. When such officials came home on furlough, most of them came also to Miss Nightingale. Dr. Sutherland, in his official capacity on the War Office Sanitary Committee, would often see them first; he would then pass them on to her, dividing them into two classes: those “whom you must simply lecture” and those “whose education you had better conduct by innocently putting searching questions to them.” Miss Nightingale was never backward in filling the part of governess to those who in sanitary matters governed India. VI Sanitary improvement depended, however, on the governed as well as on the governors; and Miss Nightingale had for some time been extending her influence in India by making the personal acquaintance of Indian gentlemen. “I have been quite beset by Parsees,” she wrote to M. Mohl (Feb. 16, 1868); “and after all I saw your Manochjee Cursetjee, that is, the ‘Byron of the East.’ Sir B. Frere says that few men have done so much for the education of their own race. He talked a good deal of Philosophy to me, while my head was entirely in Midwifery! He is (by his own proposal), if I can send out the Midwives,
- 64. to take them in at the house of his daughters, of whom one married a Cama, and the other is the first Parsee lady who ever lived as an English single lady might do.” Many other Indian ladies and gentlemen were introduced to Miss Nightingale personally or in correspondence by Miss Carpenter. In 1870 Miss Nightingale was elected an Honorary Member of the Bengal Social Science Association, the Council of which body was mainly composed of Indian gentlemen. She wrote a cordial letter of thanks (May 25). “For eleven years,” she said, “what little I could do for India, for the conditions on which the Eternal has made to depend the lives and healths and social happiness of men, as well Native as European, has been the constant object of my thoughts by day and my thoughts by night.” She eulogized the work that had been done by many private gentlemen of India; she put before them a vision of vast schemes of drainage and irrigation; she sent a subscription to the funds of the Association, and promised a contribution to its Proceedings. In this contribution,[114] sent in June 1870, Miss Nightingale did what Sir Bartle Frere desired: she addressed the Village Elder. “I think,” said Dr. Sutherland, who had submitted a draft for Miss Nightingale to rewrite in her own language, “that this is the most important contribution you have made to the question.” In simple and terse language, she described the sanitary reforms which might be carried out by the people themselves— pointing out in detail the nature of the evils, and the appropriate remedies for them, and then appealing to simple motives for sanitary improvement. “As we find in all history and true fable that the meanest causes universally multiplied produce the greatest effects, let us not think it other than a fitting sacrifice to the Eternal and Perfect One to look into the lowest habits of great peoples, in order, if we may, to awaken them to a sense of the injury they are doing themselves and the good they might do themselves. Much of the willingness for education is due to the fact, appreciated by them, that
- 65. education makes money. But would not the same appreciation, if enlightened, show them that loss of health, loss of strength, loss of life, is loss of money, the greatest loss of money we know? And we may truly say that every sanitary improvement which saves health and life is worth its weight in gold.” This address to the Peoples of India was the most widely distributed of all Miss Nightingale's missionary efforts. The Association translated it into Bengali. Sir Bartle Frere had it translated into other Indian languages. VII Miss Nightingale's third sphere of missionary work was in the Sanitary Department at the India Office, to which, through her alliance with Sir Bartle Frere, she was a confidential adviser. Her action, in making suggestions and in seeking to influence officials in India, has been illustrated already. Her constant work was in helping to edit and in contributing to the Annual Blue-book containing reports of “measures adopted for sanitary improvements in India.” The importance which Miss Nightingale attached to the publication of such an annual has been explained in general terms already (p. 145). She saw in it two useful purposes. First, the fact that reports from India were required and published each year acted as a spur to the authorities in that country; and, secondly, the introductory memorandum, and the inclusion of reports on Indian matters by the War Office Sanitary Committee, gave opportunity, year by year, for making suggestions and criticisms. The Annual was issued by the Sanitary Department at the India Office and edited by Mr. C. C. Plowden, a zealous clerk in that office with whom Miss Nightingale made friends; Sir Bartle Frere, as head of the Department, instructed him to submit all the reports to Miss Nightingale who in fact was assistant-editor, or perhaps rather (for her will seems to have been law) editor-in-chief. It was she who had prepared for the Royal
- 66. Commission the analysis of sanitary defects in the several Indian Stations; who had written the “Observations” on them; who had taken a principal part in drafting the “Suggestions” for their reform. It was natural that she should be asked to report on the measures actually taken to that end. She was a very critical reporter. “Sir Bartle Frere hesitates a little,” she was told on one occasion (1869), “as to the omission of all terms of praise, and says that the Indian Jupiter is a god of sunshine as well as thunder and should dispense both; he, however, sanctions the omission in the present case.” Miss Nightingale's papers show that during the years 1869–74 she devoted great labour to the Annual. She read and criticised the abstracts of the local reports prepared by Mr. Plowden; she discussed all the points that they suggested with Dr. Sutherland; she wrote, or suggested, the introductory memorandum. She did this work with the greater zeal because it kept her informed of every detail; and the knowledge thus acquired gave the greater force to her private correspondence with Viceroys, Governors, Commanders-in-Chief, and Sanitary Commissioners. Her share in the first number of the Annual has been already described (p. 155). In the following year Mr. Plowden wrote (May 22, 1869): “I forward a sketch of the Introductory Memorandum to the Sanitary volume. You will see that the greater part of it is copied verbatim from a memorandum of your own that Sir Bartle Frere handed over to me for this purpose.” “I can never thank you sufficiently,” wrote Sir Bartle himself (July 5), “for all the kind help you have given to Mr. Plowden's Annual, at the cost of an amount of trouble to yourself which I hardly like to think of. But I feel sure it will leave its mark on India.” She took good care that it should at any rate have a chance of doing so. She had discovered that the 1868 Report, though sent to India in October of that year, had not been distributed in the several Presidencies till June 1869. She now saw to it that copies of the 1869 Report were sent separately to the various stations
- 67. by book-post. She continued to contribute in one way or another to successive volumes[115]; and that for 1874 included a long and important paper by her. VIII Ten years before Miss Nightingale had popularized the Report of her Royal Commission in a paper entitled “How People may Live and Not Die in India.” The Paper was read to the Social Science Congress in 1863. In 1873 she was again requested to contribute a Paper to the Congress. She chose for her title “How some People have Lived, and Not Died in India.” It was a summary in popular form of ten years' progress, and this was the Paper which the India Office reprinted in its Blue-book of 1874. Miss Nightingale glanced in rapid detail at the improvements in various parts of India; took occasion to give credit to particularly zealous officials; and noticed incidentally some of the common objections. One objection was that caste prejudice must ever be an insuperable obstacle to sanitary improvement. She gave “a curious and cheerful” instance to the contrary. Calcutta had “found the fabled virtues of the Ganges in the pure water-tap.” When the water- supply was first introduced, the high-caste Hindoos still desired their water-carriers to bring them the sacred water from the river; but these functionaries, finding it much easier to take the water from the new taps, just rubbed in a little (vulgar, not sacred) mud and presented it as Ganges water. When at last the healthy fraud was discovered, public opinion, founded on experience, had already gone too far to return to dirty water. And the new water-supply was, at public meetings, adjudged to be “theologically as well as physically safe.” Then there was the objection of expense, but she analysed the result of sanitary improvements in statistics of the army. The death- rate had been brought down from 69 per 1000 to 18. Only 18 men
- 68. died where 69 died before. A sum of £285,000 was the money saving on recruits in a single year. The course of sanitary improvement, and the results of it, among the civil population cannot be brought to any such definite test; no Indian census was taken till 1872, registration of births and deaths was only beginning and was very imperfect; and India is a country as large as the whole of Europe (without Russia). It was the opinion of a competent authority that the sanitary progress which had been made in India during the years covered by Miss Nightingale's review “had no parallel in the history of the world”;[116] but the progress was relative of course to the almost incredibly insanitary condition of the country when she began her crusade. The progress had been made along many different lines. First, in connection with the health of military stations, the Government of India established committees of military, civil, medical and engineering officers, of local magistrates and village authorities to regulate the sanitary arrangements of the neighbourhood. Sanitary oases for British troops were thus established in the midst of insanitary deserts. Then, sanitary regulations were issued for fairs and pilgrimages—each of these a focus of Indian disease. Institutions in India—hospitals, jails, asylums—had been greatly improved; and the municipalities of the great cities had made some sanitary progress. Ten years before, Miss Nightingale had reported to the Royal Commission that no one of the seats of Presidencies in India had as yet arrived at the degree of sanitary civilization shown in the worst parts of the worst English towns. Now, Calcutta had a pure-water supply and the main drainage of most of the town was complete. Bombay had done less by municipal action, but thanks to a specially vigorous Health Officer, Dr. Hewlett, sanitation had been improved. Madras had improved its water-supply and was successfully applying a part of its sewage to agriculture. The
- 69. condition of the vast regions of rural India showed that the teaching of the Sanitary Commissioners was beginning to take some effect. Hollows and excavations near villages were being filled up; brushwood and jungle, removed; wells, cleaned. Surface refuse was being removed; and tanks were being provided for sewage, to prevent it going into the drinking-tanks. From reports of particular places, Miss Nightingale drew her favourite moral. There was a village in South India which had suffered very badly from cholera and fever. It was in a foul and wretched state, and had polluted water. Then wells were dug and properly protected; the surface drainage was improved; cleanliness was enforced; trees were planted. The village escaped the next visitation of the scourge. Miss Nightingale had many hours of depression, and many occasions of disappointment, as Health Missionary for India; but in her Paper of 1874 she bore “emphatic witness how great are the sanitary deeds already achieved, or in the course of being achieved, by the gallant Anglo-Indians, as formerly she bore emphatic witness against the then existing neglects.” Only the fringe of the evil had been touched; but at any rate enough had been done to show that the old bogey, “the hopeless Indian climate,” might in course of time be laid by wise precautions. “There is a vast work going on in India,” said Dr. Sutherland; and in this work Miss Nightingale had throughout played a principal, and the inspiring, part. It was the opinion of an unprejudiced expert who, though he admired her devotion, did not always agree with her views or methods, that “of the sanitary improvements in India three-fourths are due to Miss Nightingale.”[117] But here, as in all things, her gaze was fixed upon the path to perfection. In her own mind she counted less the past advance than the future way. There was an Appendix to her Paper in which she preached the supreme importance of Irrigation—of irrigation, that is,
- 70. combined with scientific drainage. Only by that means, she held, could yet more people “live and not die in India,” and could the country be raised to its full productive power. A letter which Sir Stafford Northcote sent her (April 29, 1874), in acknowledgment of her Paper on “Life or Death in India,” exactly expressed her own feelings. “How much,” he said, “you have done! and how little you think you have done! After all, the measure of our work depends upon whether we take it by looking backwards or by looking forwards, by looking on what has been accomplished or on what has revealed itself as still to be accomplished. When we have got to the top of the mountain, are we much nearer the stars or not?” CHAPTER IV ADVISER-GENERAL ON HOSPITALS AND NURSING (1868–1872) We are your Soldiers, and we look for the approval of our Chief.—Miss Agnes Jones (Letter to Miss Nightingale). From a correspondent in the North of England: “I have got a colliery proprietor here to co-operate with the workmen to build a Hospital for Accidents. Will you kindly give your opinion on the best kind of building?” From a correspondent in London: “We are proposing to form a British Nursing Association. May we ask for your advice and suggestions?” These letters are samples of hundreds which Miss Nightingale received, and to all such applications she readily replied. She constituted herself, or rather she was constituted by her fellow- countrymen, a Central Department for matters pertaining to hospitals and nurses.
- 71. From all parts of the country, from British colonies and from some foreign countries, plans of proposed General Hospitals, Cottage Hospitals, Convalescent Homes were submitted to her. She criticised them carefully. When she was consulted at an earlier stage, she often submitted plans of her own. In all such cases, there were experts among her large circle of friends—architects, sanitary engineers, military engineers, hospital superintendents and matrons—to advise and assist her. And here a curiously interesting thing may be noticed. Miss Nightingale had begun her work as a Reformer with the military hospitals. So high was now their standard that she often went to them for models. Many plans for ideal hospitals were drawn for her at this time by Lieutenant W. F. Ommamney, R.E., at the War Office. The improvement of buildings and of nursing went on concurrently, and Miss Nightingale used her influence in each department to improve the other. If she were consulted only about buildings, she would answer: “These plans are all very well, as far as they go; but your Hospital will never be efficient without adequate provision for a supply of properly trained nurses.” If she were asked to furnish a supply of nurses, she would say: “By all means; but you must satisfy me first that your buildings are sanitary.” Thus, when she was asked to send nurses to the Sydney Infirmary, she stipulated that plans of the buildings should be submitted; and when the War Office was negotiating for a supply of nurses for Netley, there was a voluminous correspondence about the improvement of the wards and of the nurses' quarters. There was a great extension during these years of societies for the training of nurses, and of the introduction of trained nurses into infirmaries and other institutions. All this involved a large addition to Miss Nightingale's correspondence. As the nursing system extended, many questions arose with regard to the relation between the medical
- 72. and the nursing staffs, and she was constantly referred to for suggestions and advice. She printed a code of “Suggestions” in 1868 dealing with such matters,[118] and three years later she and Dr. Sutherland drew up a Code for Infirmary Nursing which was approved by Mr. Stansfeld, the President of the newly-formed Local Government Board. Her correspondence was as extensive with individuals as with institutions. Hundreds of girls who thought of becoming nurses applied to her, and she generally answered their letters; but the supply of nurses barely kept pace with the demand. Miss Nightingale was impressed in particular by the lack of suitable applicants for the higher posts. There were many women anxious to take up nursing as a profession. There were few who possessed the social standing, the high character, trained intelligence, and personal devotion which were necessary to make them successful Lady Superintendents; and much of Miss Nightingale's correspondence during these years was to friends in various parts of the country who were begged to enlist promising recruits. II Among the women who sought out Miss Nightingale for advice were Queens and Princesses. She guarded very jealously, however, the seclusion which was necessary to enable her to do her chosen work, and she did not allow it to be invaded at will even by the most exalted personages. Her position as a chronic invalid gave her the advantage. She could pick and choose by feeling a little stronger or a little weaker. She made two rules which she communicated to her influential friends. She would not be well enough to see any Queen or Princess who did not take a personal and practical interest in hospitals or nursing; and she would never be well enough to receive any who did not come unattended by ladies or lords in waiting. Any interview must be entirely devoid of ceremonial; it must be simply between one
- 73. woman interested in nursing and another. In 1867 the Queen of Prussia was paying a visit to the English court, and Queen Victoria asked Miss Nightingale through Sir James Clark to see Queen Augusta. Miss Nightingale was assured that the Queen had given much personal attention to hospitals. Miss Nightingale saw her (July 6) and found that the assurances were well founded:— (Miss Nightingale to Julius Mohl.) 35 South Street, July 28 [1867]. I am a little unhappy because the Queen of Prussia's Secretary told Mad. Mohl that I had seen the Queen. I liked her. I don't think the mixture of pietism and absolutism is much more attractive at the Court of Prussia than at the Court of Rome. Still, I am always struck, especially with our own Royal family, how superior they are in earnestness and education to other women. I know no two girls of any class, of any country, who take so much interest in things that are interesting, as the Crown Princess of Prussia and Princess Alice of Darmstadt—especially in theological matters and administration. The Queen of Holland, it will be remembered, had not been received; but at a later time Miss Nightingale saw her, in November 1868 and again in March 1870. “I think of you,” wrote Queen Sophie (March 29, 1870), “as one of the highest and best I have met in this world.” The Princess Alice asked for an interview in 1867 through Lady Herbert, who was able to inform Miss Nightingale that “the Princess has been to see most of the hospitals in London with a view to learn all about them so as to improve those in Darmstadt.” Miss Nightingale saw the Princess in June, and in subsequent years there was much correspondence between them. But the royal lady who made the greatest impression on Miss Nightingale was the Crown Princess Victoria. It had been explained to Miss Nightingale by one of the Princess's ladies that “H.R.H. has always thought a life devoted to the comfort of fellow-beings and the alleviation of their sufferings the one most to be envied,” and that “she knows your Notes on Hospitals and Notes on Nursing almost by heart.” The Princess was in England at the
- 74. end of 1868, and was full at the time of schemes for a new hospital at Berlin, for lying-in hospitals, for a training-school for nurses. She showed her practical purpose by sending to Miss Nightingale in advance her architect's plans. They had two long interviews in December, and Miss Nightingale had a very busy fortnight with Dr. Sutherland in collecting statistics about various lying-in hospitals and in preparing plans, with the assistance of the Army Medical Department and War Office Sanitary Committee, on the best model. Miss Nightingale was delighted with her visitor. “She took every point,” she told Dr. Sutherland, “as quick as lightning.” “I have a fresh neophyte,” she wrote to Sir John McNeill (Dec. 25, 1868), “in the person of the Crown Princess of Prussia. She has a quick intelligence, and is cultivating herself in knowledge of sanitary (and female) administration for her future great career. She comes alone like a girl, pulls off her hat and jacket like a five-year-old, drags about a great portfolio of plans, and kneels by my bedside correcting them. She gives a great deal of trouble. But I believe it will bear fruit.” That the inquiries of the Princess were searching, and her commissions exacting, appears from the correspondence:— (Miss Nightingale to the Crown Princess of Prussia.) 35 South Street, Dec. 21 [1868]. Madam—In grateful obedience to Your Royal Highness's command, directing me to forward to Osborne before the 24th the commissions with which you favoured me, I send (1) the Portfolio of plans for the Hospital[189] near the Plotzen See, and, in this envelope, the criticism upon the plans. Also, in another envelope (2) a sketch of the Nursing “hierarchy” required to nurse this Hospital (with a Training School attached), even to ages desirable—as desired by Your Royal Highness. Also (3) the methods of continuous examination in use (with full-sized copies of the Forms) to test the progress of our Probationers (Probe-Schwestern). Also (4) lists of the clothing and underclothing (even to changes of linen) we give to and require from our Probationers and Nurses, and of the changes of sheets. Your Royal Highness having directed me to send patterns “in paper” of our Probationers' dress, I have thought it better to
- 75. have a complete uniform dress such as our Probationers wear, for in-doors and out-doors, made for Your Royal Highness's inspection, even to bonnet, cap, and collar, which will arrive by this Messenger in a small box and parcel. I am afraid that the aspect of these papers will be quite alarming from their bulk. But I can only testify my gratitude for your Royal Highness's great kindness by fulfilling as closely as I can the spirit of your gracious will. I am sorry to say that I have not yet done encumbering your Royal Highness. The plans for Lying-in Cottages had to be completed at the War Office and are not quite ready. But they shall be forwarded “before the 24th.” I think we have succeeded in producing a perfectly healthy and successful Lying-in Cottage, by means of great sub-division and incessant cleanliness and ventilation, which includes the not having any ward constantly occupied. In one of these Huts we have had 600 Lyings-in consecutively without a single death or case of puerperal disease or casualty of any kind. (This experience is, I believe, without a fellow, but will, I trust, have many fellows before long.) Believe me, your Royal Highness's enquiry about these things does the greatest good, not only with regard to what is proposed in Prussia, but in stirring up the War Office, the Medical authorities, and other officials here to consider these vital trifles more seriously. And thus thousands of lives of poor women, of poor patients of all kinds, will be saved, even in England, through your Royal Highness's means. Hitherto Lying-in Hospitals have been not to cure but to kill. As I have again to trouble your Royal Highness about these subjects, I will not now enter into two or three other little things with which I was commissioned. May I beg always to be considered, Madam, the most faithful, ready and devoted of Your Royal Highness's servants. (The Crown Princess of Prussia to Miss Nightingale.) Osborne, Dec. 24 [1868]. I don't wish to lose a minute in thanking you for your great kindness and for all the trouble you[190] have taken for me. Your letter is so excellent, and all the information you give is most valuable, and will be of untold use, not only to me as a guide in my humble endeavours to promote a serious, conscientious, and rational spirit in the treatment of sanitary matters, but to many others in Germany. Your precious time has not been wasted while you were writing for me, I assure you. The dress I think very neat and nice, and not clerical looking (which is, in my eyes, an advantage). I was so vexed that I forgot to tell you the other day how much I admired Una and the Lion. I read it this summer in Germany, and thought it touching
- 76. and lovely in the extreme. I “colported” it right and left! After I have arrived at Berlin and had leisure thoroughly to go into every detail of the materials you have given me, I will write to you again. These few lines are only to express my earnest thanks. The Crown Prince wishes me to say how sorry he is never to have seen you. He shares my feelings when your name is mentioned. I trust that the next time I am in this country I shall see you again. I remain, dear Miss Nightingale, yours gratefully, Victoria. Negotiations with the Nightingale Fund were presently opened, and the Crown Princess sent Fräulein Fuhrmann, who afterwards superintended the Victoria Training School for Nurses in Berlin (p. 204), to receive her own training as a Nightingale Nurse at St. Thomas's. III The Nightingale Training School had for many years been extending the area of its influence, and Miss Nightingale herself, in spite of her incessant work in other fields, never lost general control and supervision of it. Year after year, she kept up correspondence, both voluminous and intimate, with Mrs. Wardroper, the Matron. Her brother-in-law, Sir Harry Verney, was now Chairman of the Council of the Nightingale Fund; her cousin, Mr. Henry Bonham Carter, had succeeded Mr. Clough as Secretary—a duty which he continues to discharge to this day. Sir Harry Verney saw Miss Nightingale frequently with regard to the business of the School. Between Mr. Bonham Carter and her there is a great mass of correspondence extending over forty years and more; conducted sometimes by an exchange of letters through the post, sometimes by notes of question and answer at her house, as in the case of Dr. Sutherland. Mr. Bonham Carter, alike as Secretary of the Fund and as a cousin devoted to Miss Nightingale personally, gave his time and zeal without stint to the work; but he had independence of character. He was once asked how he contrived
- 77. to do other things besides serve Miss Nightingale. “When it was getting late,” he explained, “I used to say, Now I must go home to dinner.” His devotion, good sense, and business-like habits contributed largely to the success of the undertaking, and saved Miss Nightingale much trouble in matters both of detail and of general administrative policy; but questions of what may be called the superior direction of the School were always referred to her, and there were many occasions on which her personal influence was felt to be indispensable. It was especially brought to bear whenever a contingent of Nightingale Nurses was sent from St. Thomas's to occupy new ground. The phrase quoted at the head of this chapter, from a letter by Miss Agnes Jones, when she was thus sent to pioneer work in the Liverpool Workhouse, exactly expresses one side of the relationship between the nurses and Miss Nightingale. But she was more to them than a Chief. She was not a distant and almost impersonal abstraction like “The Widow at Windsor.” The Lady in South Street was not only the queen of the Nightingale Nurses, she was also their mother. The principal lieutenants who went out on important service, and many members of the rank and file, maintained constant correspondence with her—sending to her direct reports, consulting her in difficulties, looking to her, and never in vain, for counsel and encouragement. Miss Nightingale took especial pains to help and to influence the Lady Superintendents who went from St. Thomas's in command of nursing parties. Among her earlier papers containing thoughts about her future work, there is more than one reference to “Richelieu's ‘Self-multiplication.’” She strove to extend her work by creating lieutenants in her own image. One of the most important of the missionary voyages of the Nightingale Nurses during these years was to New South Wales. Miss Nightingale had for some time been in correspondence with Sir Henry
- 78. Parkes, then Colonial Secretary in New South Wales, about the nursing in the Sydney Infirmary, and in December 1867 Miss Osburn sailed with five nurses to take up the position of Lady Superintendent. The nurses arrived in time to nurse Prince Alfred, when he was shot during his visit to the Colony. There is a letter from Sir William Jenner to Miss Nightingale (July 4, 1868) saying, “I have received the Queen's commands to tell you how very useful they were. Her Majesty says, ‘She is sure this information will give Miss Nightingale much pleasure.’” In one respect the nurses were more successful than Miss Nightingale desired. At first all went well. There were difficulties with the doctors and others, of course, but Sir Henry Parkes was always helpful. There was “no flirting,” Miss Osburn reported (May 20), “and all the nurses cling round me in difficulties like true Britons.” But they did not cling for long. Their services were too much appreciated. In a few years' time all the five had either married or received valuable appointments outside the Infirmary, and Miss Osburn had to recruit her staff from the Colony itself. Miss Nightingale thought that the expedition had thus “failed”; but there was something to be said on the other side, and the diffusion of the Nightingale band did much to promote the extension of trained nursing in the Colony. Another expedition of great importance was an extension of the Liverpool experiment to London. In 1868 Mr. (afterwards Sir) William Wyatt, the leader of a reform party in St. Pancras, had entered into correspondence with Miss Nightingale with regard to the new Infirmary (built under the Act of 1867) at Highgate; he submitted the plans of the building, and suggested the introduction of Nightingale Nurses. She approved the plans, encouraged him in his good work, and in the following year (1869) Miss Elizabeth Torrance was appointed matron, with nine nurses under her. The experiment was presently extended, and a training school for nurses was established
- 79. at the Infirmary. There are about one hundred letters from Miss Torrance a year, a figure which will give some idea of the close touch which Miss Nightingale kept with important lieutenants. She considered Miss Torrance “the most capable Superintendent they had yet trained” (1870), and the letters bear out the estimate. They are those of a canny, capable and devoted woman—taking everything quietly as part of the day's work, with no fussiness or needless self- importance. “I have never seen such nurses,” wrote the Medical Superintendent, when Miss Torrance and her staff had been at work for some months; “they are so thoroughly conversant with disease that one feels quite on one's mettle in practice. What strikes me most is the real interest they take in the work, and this is the secret of their success”—not attainable by the pauper nurses whom they displaced. Inspectors, Guardians, and other officials would have done well to feel quite on their mettle in Miss Torrance's presence also; for her letters show her to have been possessed of a humorous shrewdness which took the measure of men, by no means always at their own valuation. Miss Torrance amongst other reforms introduced useful work into the occupation of the inmates. “The achievement I am most proud of,” she wrote (1871), “is getting the men's suits cut out and made. I found a tailor in No. 2 Ward who cut out some, and I sent them into Nos. 1 and 4 to be made, but there was a tailor in No. 1 who made difficulties, ‘You see, ma'am, it's such a very old-fashioned cut.’” Once a week at least the Matron wrote reporting progress or difficulties to Miss Nightingale, who replied with advice, books, presents. Nurses, of whom the Matron reported well, came in batches to see Miss Nightingale. “They returned,” wrote Miss Torrance, of one occasion of the kind, “beaming with delight, but as they all talked about it at once I did not gather very clearly what passed. Sister A., however, feared that Sister B. ‘must have tried Miss Nightingale.’” Sister B., it seems, had the same fear about Sister A. Nurses and Matron alike regarded
- 80. their reception by Miss Nightingale as a high privilege. “I always feel refreshed for months,” wrote Mrs. Wardroper (March 1871), “after one of those affectionate receptions you accord me.” None of Miss Nightingale's “soldiers” left her cabinet without feeling a better and a braver woman. Miss Torrance presently fell from grace in Miss Nightingale's eyes by becoming engaged to be married. At a critical period of the engagement, she failed to keep some appointments at South Street, and Miss Nightingale did not recover equanimity till she recalled to herself a saying of Mr. Clough's: “Persons in that case should be treated as if they had the scarlet fever.” In November 1869 there were receptions in South Street such as a sovereign sometimes accords to warriors or statesmen on the eve of a great emprise. A Superintendent of Nurses (Mrs. Deeble) and a staff of six Ward Sisters were setting out from St. Thomas's to take charge of the War Office Hospital at Netley. Miss Nightingale received them all, gave them presents and addressed words of encouragement. “That I have ‘seen Miss Nightingale’” wrote one of them, “will be one of the white mile-stones on my road, to which I shall often look back with feelings of gratitude and pleasure. I trust that I shall never forget some of the things you said to me, and that ‘looking up’ I may be enabled to show by my future life that your great kindness has not been thrown away.” “The Netley sisters,” wrote Mrs. Wardroper, “are overflowing with love and gratitude for all the interest and trouble you have so kindly taken for and in them. Your reception, pretty presents, and good advice have quite won their hearts. To know you, and to have heard from your own lips, that each one has your best wishes and prayer for success will do much to cheer and help them.” “I have been preaching to them four hours a day,” wrote Miss Nightingale to M. Mohl (Nov. 21), “and expounding Regulations. Some of them are very nice women. One was out with Dr. Livingstone and Bishop
- 81. Mackenzie on the Zambesi Mission. One, a woman who would be distinguished in any society, accidentally read my little article on ‘Una,’ and wrote off to us the same night offering to go through our training (which she did) and join us.” “Expounding Regulations” was always a part of Miss Nightingale's exhortation on such occasions. In this particular case she had a hand in making the Regulations. In other cases she often found them very stupid. They were generally made by men, who were incapable, she thought (as we have heard already), of devising suitable regulations for women. “Oh, how I wish there were no men,” she wrote on one occasion when trying to compose a hospital quarrel. But even bad regulations must be observed, till they can be altered, and women did not always understand that some diplomacy was necessary to obtain the alteration. “Women,” she said, “are unable to see that it requires wisdom as well as self-denial to establish any new work.” As the work which the Nightingale Nurses had at this time to do was all new, there were many difficulties and most of them came up to Miss Nightingale for solution or advice. When a very long-winded letter arrived, she would often send it on unread to Dr. Sutherland, for him to digest and advise upon. It was her comfortable persuasion that he had nothing else to do, and she scolded him if there was any delay; but sooner or later he did the work for her, and his advice in such matters never failed in shrewd common sense. Sometimes he would say, “This letter shows a fit of temper on the nurse's part, and is a case for a little homily from you.” In such homilies Miss Nightingale would mingle an appeal to higher motives with a reference to her own example and experience—as in the following letter:— (To a Discontented Nurse.) April 22 [1869]. Do you think I should have succeeded in doing anything if I had kicked and resisted and resented? Is it our Master's command? Is it even common sense? I have been even shut
- 82. out of hospitals into which I had been ordered to go by the Commander-in- Chief—obliged to stand outside the door in the snow till night—been refused rations for as much as 10 days at a time for the nurses I had brought by superior command.[119] And I have been as good friends the day after with the officials who did these things—have resolutely ignored these things for the sake of the work. What was I to my Master's work? When people offend, they offend the Master, before they do me. And who am I that I should not choose to bear what my Master chooses to bear? You have many high and noble points of character. Else I should not write to you as I do. But the spirit of opposition in which you are working (or rather were at the time you wrote, for I am satisfied it was only an ebullition of the moment), and yet doing your work well and doing good, would, if it really were persisted in, materially increase the difficulties of that work to which, I am sure, you are devoted. IV There was one failure in the work of the Nightingale Fund which led Miss Nightingale to write a new book, than which none ever cost her more labour. In 1867 the Midwifery School established in King's College Hospital[120] had to be closed owing to the high rate of mortality in the lying-in wards. As soon as the figures were brought to Miss Nightingale's notice, she set to work in examining the whole subject of mortality in lying-in wards. She soon found that no trustworthy statistics of mortality in child-bed had yet been collected. She searched for them throughout this country and from foreign hospitals and doctors. She discovered that in lying-in wards everywhere the death-rate was many times the amount of that which took place in home deliveries. This fact showed that public attention should at once be called to the subject, and at the same time it opened up larger questions. There was one school of medical opinion which held that the mortality must in the nature of things be large in lying-in wards; there was another which held that the high rate of mortality therein might be prevented. The inquiries which Miss
- 83. Nightingale had made for the Crown Princess of Prussia[121] inclined her to the latter view, and she pursued her researches in all directions, collecting an immense mass of information and calling in the assistance of sanitary engineers and other authorities. It should be remembered in all this that the introduction of antiseptics has much altered the conditions since the time of Miss Nightingale's work now under consideration. Materials for a book accumulated, but time to put them into shape was wanting. Dr. Sutherland, on whose assistance she mainly relied, was no more able than she herself to give undivided attention to the subject; but at last with his help the book was written. It was published in October 1871, with the title Introductory Notes on Lying-in Institutions. The book did for this special subject something of the same service which Notes on Hospitals had done in the general sphere. Miss Nightingale showed by statistical evidence that many lying-in wards and institutions were pest-houses; she showed the importance of isolation and extreme cleanliness; and furnished model rules, plans and specifications for sanitary lying-in hospitals. In the latter pages, the book was an extension of the Notes on Nursing to this special branch. She urged the importance of training-schools for midwives; described the ideal of an institution of the kind; and pleaded for “Midwifery as a Career for Educated Women.” There was much agitation at the time for the admission of women to the medical profession. Miss Nightingale in a letter addressed “Dear Sisters,” suggested that there was “a better thing for women to be than ‘medical men,’ and that is to be medical women.” She was in the country when the book was passing through the press; and Dr. Sutherland, in sending a last revise with some suggestions of his own, said (July 22), “I return the proof corrected. Don't swear, but read the reasons on the accompanying paper. It is a good thing you are at Lea Hurst or your ‘dear sisters’ would infallibly break your head. They will probably break your windows. However,
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