CONTENTS

Clyde’s Pickup

PART I: THE ECSTATIC SKIN OF THE EARTH

Stardust

The First Soil

Humus

Saint Phocas as Fertilizer

Sweet and Sour Soils

The Sand Drowns the Sea, the Sea Takes the Sand

Virgin Soil

PART II: THE MATRIX

Fire and Ice

Dirt

The Theory and Practice of Manuring

John Adams’s Manure Piles

The Compost Man

The Soil of Graves

The Dung Beetle

The Almost Perfect Recipe

PART III: ON DIGGING HOLES

Lessons in Digging

On Digging Holes

Phalloi and Calendars

The Hole to China

PART IV: EARTH AND STONE

Earthquakes and Moonquakes

The Circulation of Stone

Old Quarries

The Foundations of Cathedrals

Groundwater

PART V: CLAY ALIVE

In a Landscape of Clays

The Theory of Silt

Crevice Invasion

Clay and Life

Kaolin

The Path of a Clay Crystal

PART VI: IN THE DARK

On Gopher Humps

Of Worms

Perception in Earthworms

The Pharmacy of Molds

PART VII: HUMAN SOIL

The Soil and the Devil

The Soil Apocalypse of George Perkins Marsh

Husbandry in Rome

Dio-He-Ko

PART VIII: VISIONS OF THE SOIL

Underground Horizons

Wind and Soil

The Soil Man

Into the Pits

The Earth for Jefferson and Adams

Stardust