The soils which develop on the lavas and ashes about an active volcano afford interesting subjects for study, for the reason that they show how far the development of the layer which supports vegetation may depend upon the character of the rocks from which it is derived. Where the materials ejected from a volcano lie in a rainy district, the process of decay which converts the rock into soil is commonly very rapid, a few years of exposure to the weather being sufficient to bring about the formation of a fertile soil. This is due to the fact that most lavas, as well as the so-called volcanic ashes, which are of the same material as the lavas, only blown to pieces, are composed of varied minerals, the most of which are readily attacked by the agents of decay. Now and then, however, we find the materials ejected from a particular volcano, or even the lavas and ashes of a single eruption, in such a chemical state that soils form upon them with exceeding slowness. * * * * * The foregoing incomplete considerations make it plain that the soil-covering of the earth is the result of very delicate adjustments, which determine the rate at which the broken-down rocks find their path from their original bed places to the sea. The admirable way in which this movement is controlled is indicated by the fact that almost everywhere we find a soil-covering deep enough for the use of a varied vegetation, but rarely averaging more than a dozen feet in depth. Only here and there are the rocks bare or the earth swathed in a profound mass of detritus. This indicates how steadfast and measured is the march of the rock waste from the hills to the sea. Unhappily, man, when by his needs he is forced to till the soil, is compelled to break up this ancient and perfect order. He has to strip the living mantle from the earth, replacing it with growth of those species which serve his needs. Those plants which are most serviceable--which are, indeed, indispensable in the higher civilization, the grains--require for their cultivation that the earth be stripped bare and deeply stirred during the rainy season, and thus subjected to the most destructive effect of the rainfall. The result is, that in almost all grain fields the rate of soil destruction vastly surpasses that at which the accumulation is being made. We may say, indeed, that, except in alluvial plains, where the soil grows by flood-made additions to its upper surface, no field tilled in grain can without exceeding care remain usable for a century. Even though the agriculturist returns to the earth all the chemical substances which he takes away in his crops, the loss of the soil by the washing away of its substance to the stream will inevitably reduce the region to sterility.