Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-dfsvx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-29T14:07:55.310Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Pedology1 as a Branch of Geology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

Gilbert Wooding Robinson
Affiliation:
(Adviser in Agricultural Chemistry, University Coll. of N. Wales, Bangor).

Extract

To the geologist the soil is an inconvenient mantle hiding the more important material which he wishes to study. Even the drift geologist, who is more particularly interested in superficial deposits, generally dismisses the soil as lying above his zone of interest. Yet the processes which go on in the soil horizons have an importance apart from their significance in practical agriculture. The study of soils has, perhaps, suffered from its close relationship to practical affairs, for it has naturally been left to the agricultural chemist, who has been obliged to approach it with an applied bias. We have in our own country scarcely any research in which the material is treated from a purely scientific point of view and studied in the same way as rocks have been studied by geologists.

Type
Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1924

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

The writer ventures to hope that this convenient term (Gr. πéδov = soil or earth) will be more generally used to describe the scientific study of soils. There seems to be no satisfactory alternative.

References

(1) Cummins, (A. B.) and Kelley, (W. P.), “The Formation of Sodium Carbonate in Soils”: Univ. California Technical Paper, 1924, No. 3.Google Scholar
(2) De Domenicis, (A.), “Terreni Salzi e Terreni Alcalini”: Staz. Sper. Agrar. Italiane, li, 1918, 103–61.Google Scholar
(3) Glinka, (K.), Die Typen der Bodenbildung, Borntraeger, Berlin, 1914.Google Scholar
(4) Hissink, (D. J.), “Adsorptionsvorgange im Boden”: Int. Mitt. Bodenkunde, xii, 1922, 81172.Google Scholar
(5) Hilgard, (E. W.), Soils, Macmillan Co., New York, 1906.Google ScholarPubMed
(6) Kossowitsch, (P.), “Die Schwarzerde”: Int. Mitt. Bodenkunde, i, 1912, 199354.Google Scholar
(7) McCool, (M. M.), Veatch, (J. O), and Spurway, (C. H.), Soil Science, xvi, 1923, 95106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(8) Marbut, (C. F.), “Contributions of Soil Surveys to Science”: Proc. Soc. Prom. Agric. Science, xli, 1920, 116–12.Google Scholar
(9) Merrill, (G. P.), Rocks, Rock Weathering, and Soils, Macmillan Co., New York, 1913.Google Scholar
(10) Ramann, (E.), Bodenkunde, Parey, Berlin, 1913.Google Scholar
(11) Russell, (E. J.), Soil Conditions and Plant Growth, Longmans, London, 1922.Google Scholar
(12) Searle, (A. B.), British Clays, Shales, and Sands, Griffin, London, 1912.Google Scholar
(13) Van Bemmelen, (J. M.), Die Absorption, Steinkopff, Berlin, 1910.Google Scholar
(14) Van Bemmelen, (J. M.), “Die verschiedenen Arten der Verwitterung der Silikatgesteine in der Erdrinde”: Z. Anorg. Chem., 1910.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(15) Van Hise, (C. R.), A Treatise on Metamorphism: U.S. Geological Survey, 1904.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(16) Wiegner, (G.), Böden und Bodenbildung in kolloidchemischer Betrachtung, Steinkopff, Berlin, 1918.Google Scholar