Landforms and Soils

Abstract

In 1786, Horace Benedict de Saussure wrote in his Voyages dans les Alpes (Vol. iv, p. 208) that climatic factors are responsible for the existence of differing organic matter levels in soils. A fuller appreciation of the climatic factor in soil formation has been attributed to Johann Christian Hundeshagen who, in his Forstliche Berichte und Miscellen (1830–32), mentioned that the climatic forces —water, heat, light, and oxygen—must act in unison to create a productive soil (Joffe 1949, p. 12). G.C.L. Krause, in his Bodenkunde und Klassifikation des Bodens (1832), correlated soil productivity with climatic factors. The importance of climate in understanding rock weathering and soil formation was clearly appreciated by Karl Sprengel. Writing in his Die Bodenkunde oder Lehre vom Boden, nebst einer vollstandigen Anleitung zur chemischen Analyse der Ackererde (1844), Sprengel explained how native rocks are decomposed by water, oxygen, carbon dioxide of the air, heat and cold, vegetation, and electricity. He realized as well that soil properties vary under different climates: warm climates produce soils better suited to plant growth than do cold climates because warmer environments favour a greater production of ammonia and nitrates in the process of organic decay; all organic bodies decay more slowly in cold climates than in warm climates and so manure remains in the soils of cold environments much longer; and although cold climate soils contain more organic matter, they yield less well than warm climate soils, chiefly owing to the relative brevity of the growing season.