Down to earth

摘要

Many ancient religions recognized the importance of soils, and their customs evolved into a spiritual attachment to the life-giving Earth. But surprisingly, ancient and classical scholars did not study the nature of soil. Early scientists also ignored it. For instance, the famous naturalist Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), a founder of plant geography, never compared the soils of the several continents on which he studied the distribution of plant species. This attitude still crops up frequently. The Fontana History of the Environmental Sciences (1992) contains no mention of soils as a branch of environmental science, although other Earth sciences are included. Is soil just dirt, too commonplace for mention or study?