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Ecology of Coastal Marine Sediments
Ecology of Coastal
Marine Sediments
Form, Function,
and Change in
the Anthropocene

Simon F. Thrush
Professor and Director, Institute of Marine Science, University of Auckland,
New Zealand

Judi E. Hewitt
Principal Scientist, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Hamilton,
and Professor, Department of Statistics, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Conrad A. Pilditch
Professor, School of Science, University of Waikato, New Zealand

Alf Norkko
Professor, Tvärminne Zoological Station, University of Helsinki, Finland and Guest
Professor, Baltic Sea Centre, Stockholm University, Sweden

1
1
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
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The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
First Edition published in 2021
Impression: 1
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Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
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ISBN 978–0–19–880476–5 (hbk.)
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DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198804765.001.0001
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 Preface
As you walk over a sandflat, swim over or watch
images of the seafloor you see habitats that are cre­
ated by the activities of resident organisms—assum­
ing it is not too disturbed. The organisms are
involved in many interactions both with each other
and with their physical and chemical environment.
The habitats created can be diverse and het­ero­ge­
neous, they function as complex systems. Soft sedi­
ments are partly fluid systems with very sharp
geochemical boundaries and can contain diverse
species with a wide range of motility at different life
stages. The game rules are not necessarily the same as
those that play out on competition-dominated
rocky shores or in dry terrestrial systems. The struc­
ture of these seafloor ecologies (habitat forms and
community composition) is, itself, important but
what the seafloor ecosystems do—their processes
and functioning—is profoundly important. Coastal
ecosystems have been critical for humanity, provid­
ing food, other resources and some of the most
expensive adjacent real estate. The level of human
impacts on these functions combined with feed­
backs to the delivery of ecosystem services gener­
ates both intellectual challenges and a dire need to
understand and value them. The better we under­
stand seafloor ecology and ecosystem function the
more robust is the advice we can offer to policy
­makers and society about the consequences of change.
In this book we give you a chance to read about
some of the key elements and processes involved in
the structure and function of soft-sediment ecosys­
tems. We have tried to keep the chapters short and
accessible. Other authors have written books on the
individual topics we cover in each chapter; our
efforts are not to replace these deeper dives, but
rather to provide an overview to help you see the
connections between different elements of
soft-sediment ecology. Soft-sediment ecology is
­
quintessentially an interdisciplinary science with
both habitats and ecological functions being the
products of interactions between biological, chem­
ical and physical processes. Thus, the capacity to
connect different kinds of science is essential to
advance our research. We hope the book provides
you with a big-picture vision and inspires you
to work on the necessary details and their
­implications.
The principal reason we took on the job of writing
this book was because as graduate students we
were all helped by John Gray’s original The Ecology
of Marine Sediments published in 1981. This was the
go-to book that got us started thinking about many
aspects of seafloor ecology and we continue to rec­
ommend it to our students. John also was a dear
friend and inspiring colleague. We appreciated his
open mindedness, enthusiasm and striving to keep
ecology real and relevant by linking theory and
application.
John prefaced his original book by emphasising
the dismal state of soft-sediment ecology with the
desire to move to a more experimental and
­hypothesis-testing framework. In the second edi­
tion (2009—co-authored by Mike Elliot and finished
after John’s death), this trend was continued with
the advantage of a geographic expansion of case
studies. There is still much value in consulting these
earlier versions; we have not attempted an update,
but rather an evolution. Now, nearly 40 years since
the publication of the first edition we can point to a
much more diverse and stronger science that has
continued to grow in its relevance to society and
inform our role as stewards of marine ecosystems.
v
vi P r e fa c e
Nevertheless, we hope this edition will demon­
strate there is still a lot of research to be done in
order to understand the distribution of ­soft-sediment
communities on the seafloor and the nature and
consequences of change to them. For many people,
much of the seafloor is out of sight and out of mind,
making it difficult for them to understand what
changes over space and time are occurring, why it
matters and how these changes can affect them.
Although the state of soft-sediment ecology has
improved over the last 40 years, it still takes a brave
individual to take on the challenge of this research.
We have a much stronger experimental basis for
research now. In fact we have moved beyond study­
ing simplistic cause and effect relationships into a
framework of drawing lines of evidence from mul­
tiple kinds of research conducted over different
space and time scales and into a world of context
dependency, interactions, networks and feedbacks.
Soft-sediment ecology has also moved to address
ecosystem function, which has led to an exciting
interdisciplinary science and the challenges of inte­
grating very different scientific approaches and
world views. The growing societal demand on sci­
ence to be relevant and connected to actions to
restore degraded ecosystems, assess risks and con­
serve habitats and species has meant a growing
transdisciplinary and social-ecological niche for
soft-sediment ecology.
It would be nice to think that the next 40 years
will be much more focussed on realising the deep
value of these ecosystems, moving to restore them
and conserve them on grand scales, rather than
docu­ ment­ing their decline. New techniques are
coming into play ranging from molecular ecology
to robotics, machine learning and ocean remote
sensing that will provide new ways and new scales
of practical data gathering and interpretation. But
you do not need expensive resources to do good
ecology; understanding natural history, interactions
and generating facts about how and why these eco­
systems change are still vitally important to inter­
preting data patterns—because people need to
know what it all means.
Synthesis and review are important but we can­
not lose sight of the need to generate primary data.
What is truly fascinating about soft sediments is not
just the diversity of species but what, together with
the physical and chemical conditions, these com­
bin­ations of species do to make these ecosystems
function and respond to change. There are many
details and we can view the ecology of these sys­
tems through many lenses and much is to be learned
from detailed and specific studies. However, as you
focus in on the details please remain mindful of the
bigger picture. This requires innovative ways of
learning how to shift focus to recognise the value of
different approaches and develop techniques to inte­
grate them. In asking questions of these ecosystems,
from either a fundamental or a more applied per­
spective, it is critical we think about scales of space,
time and biological organisation and in­corp­or­ate
natural history, environmental context and theory.
We are increasingly aware of how humans have
changed our seafloor ecology both locally and glo­
bal­ly. Much of the growth of civilisation is linked to
coasts and estuaries and many of our big cities are
on or near the coast (e.g. Shanghai, New York,
Manila). We continue to impact these systems both
directly and indirectly over broader scales due to
land–coast interactions, climate change, physical
disturbance and loss of biodiversity. This means
there is a real need for solutions, for understanding
and monitoring change in biodiversity and ecosys­
tem functions and, in many cases, for transforming
the trajectory of ecological trends from down to up.
There is lots to do—and a real need—from develop­
ing methods to studying processes, interactions and
patterns.
As a point of entry this book follows the model of
Gray’s first edition. It is written for people starting
out on a research career and a primer for established
managers. It is meant to provide a starting point for
new researchers to ask innovative questions and
contribute to the research. We offer an overview
and a sense of the connections between different
fundamental concepts. Finally, let us declare our
bias: although we have tried to use examples from a
wide range of places, we have not delved into deep-
sea sediments, but stayed closer to the coast. There
are many ‘world views’ of soft-sediment ecology
based on organisms (e.g. microbes, meiofauna or
macrofauna) or processes (geochemistry, biogeo­
chemistry, geology, physics) but this book is written
from an ecological perspective of working primar­
ily with macrofauna and their interactive role in

ecosystem function. Traditionally there is a strong
North Atlantic bias in soft-sediment ecological
research. We have tried to find examples from fur­
ther afield, being conscious of the degree of human
impact in many regions. Geographical spread of
research is important because without generality
we can miss critical information and end up with
disastrously biased perspectives. Throughout we
have tried to focus on empirical research exploring
and testing theory and concepts.
We have structured the book to cover five general
areas. The scene is set by the first three chapters
P r e fa c e vii
which introduce the sedimentary environment: the
physico-chemical environment of the sediment;
animal, plant and sediment interactions; and the
seafloor as a dynamic area resulting from natural
disturbances. This is followed by two practical
chapters on research approaches to answering your
questions. We then move on to three chapters that
focus on biodiversity and communities, followed
by two on ecosystem functioning. Finally we con­
sider soft-sediment ecology and research in the
Anthropocene: human impacts, climate change
and restoration.
 Acknowledgements
We thank Ian Sherman for the invitation to write the
book. He and his staff at OUP have been helpful
guides and supporters on this adventure. Writing
from opposite ends of the earth, we are also grateful
for and acknowledge the support from The
Nottbeck Foundation and Tvärminne Zoological
Station, University of Helsinki, in giving us the
opportunity to get together to work on the book.
Finally, we thank Jasmine Low, who has been essen­
tial in coordinating our activities in the final stages
of writing and has contributed some informative
figures to many chapters.
We have been lucky enough to work with many
friends and colleagues that have helped, challenged
and enriched our experience. This list is long but
thanks to John Gray, Paul Dayton, Bob Whitlatch,
Rutger Rosenberg, Roman Zajac, Sally Woodin,
Dave Wethey, Erik Bonsdorff, Joanna Norkko, Paul
Snelgrove, Dave Schneider, Pierre Legendre, Tom
Pearson, Ragnar Elmgren, Drew Lohrer, Vonda
Cummings, Joanne Ellis, Ivan Rodil, Anna Villnäs,
Carolyn Lundquist, Candida Savage, Chiara
Chiantore, Riccardo Cattaneo-Vietti, Silvia de Juan,
Kari Ellingsen, Doug Miller, Giovanni Coco and
Karin Bryan. Thanks also to our students and post-
docs for commenting on drafts and more generally
advancing our thinking, and their good humour in
the field and in joining the dots.
ix
 C H A PT ER 1
The sedimentary environment
1.1 Introduction
Our goal in this chapter is to introduce you to the
sedimentary environment. Throughout the book
we are going to emphasise the importance of inter-
actions between physical, chemical and biological
conditions. This is enormously complicated and
complex, and this chapter sets the stage for much of
this interaction by considering some fundamental
geological, physical and chemical processes.
These processes often seem simple, ordered and
structured-until life starts to complicate the situ­
ation. We start with the grains that define sediments,
how they are affected by hydrodynamic processes
and in turn how they interact with the strong chem-
ical gradients in marine sediments. This approach is
simple but allows us to focus on how organic matter
decomposition pathways vary with depth in the
sediment and also how this influences the cycling of
nutrients that sustain primary production. In com­
bin­ation, the scene set by these important physical,
chemical and geological features influences not only
the evolution of seabed morphology but also a wide
range of ecological processes including organism
dispersal and population connectivity; primary pro-
duction through altered light regimes; and the
release of con­tam­in­ants and nutrients.
We want you to start thinking about the environ-
mental factors that create different seafloor habitats
and how they both set the scene for, and interact
with, resident species and biological processes. We
focus on describing why sediment grain size is one
of the first variables that researchers have used to
help understand variation in the structure and
functioning of benthic ecosystems (Sanders, 1958,
1960). This remains a very in­form­ative variable that
Ecology of Coastal Marine Sediments: Form, Function, and Change in the Anthropocene. Simon F. Thrush, Judi E. Hewitt, Conrad A. Pilditch and Alf Norkko,
Oxford University Press (2021). © Simon Thrush, Judi Hewitt, Conrad Pilditch, and Alf Norkko.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198804765.003.0001
we nearly always measure but it’s not a simple
­situation where physical processes drive biology
(Snelgrove & Butman, 1995). Nevertheless, sedi-
ment grain size helps us characterise the near-
seabed flow regime and sedimentary environment
and it is important in regulating the transfer of par­
ticles and solutes between the benthic and pelagic
realms. Grain size, and more importantly how it
affects the porosity and permeability of sediments,
profoundly influences the microbial decomposition
of organic matter. It lays the foundation for strong
gradients in reactive solutes such as oxygen that
influence the cycling of nutrients critical for pri-
mary producers (Glud, 2008; Middleburg, 2019).
For a book that focusses primarily on the ecology
of the larger sediment-dwelling fauna, this brief
primer on sediment biogeochemistry, given from a
distinctively microbial perspective, may seem
unnecessary. However, we believe it provides the
reader with valuable context for later chapters dis-
cussing the functional roles of sediment-dwelling
fauna, and how ecological interactions influence
faunal diversity and ecosystem function.
1.2 Sediment grain size plus
Marine sediments are often described as sand or
mud but there is a large variation in both median
particle size and particle size variation. The median
grain size is useful in characterising a habitat (e.g.
sandflat, mudflat or gravel bed), but it is usually the
variation in different components of the distribu-
tion of particle sizes that affects ecosystem pro-
cesses. As the particle size varies from fine grained
silts and clays (particles <63 µm diameter) to
coarser-grained sands, dramatic shifts occur in
4 E C O L O G Y O F C O A S TA L M A R I N E S E D I M E N T S
dens­ities and types of fauna found inhabiting the
sediment and how they interact to influence ecosys-
tem function. The range of particle sizes that com-
prise the sediment regulates the abilities of animals
to construct burrows, how easily sediments are
transported by waves and currents and the
exchange of solutes across the sediment–water
interface. Shifts in benthic diversity and ecosystem
function often cor­ rel­
ate well with grain size
although the form of these relationships can vary
depending on the range of sediment grain sizes
included in the study. At the extremes, the finest-
grained mudflats and the coarsest beach sands, the
diversity will be low but im­port­ant changes occur
across a range of muddy sands to medium sand
habitats (e.g. Douglas et al., 2018; Pratt et al., 2014).
In coastal habitats grain size varies across mul­
tiple spatial scales as a function of sediment supply
from land and the near-bed hydrodynamic forces
which transport and sort sediments. These pro-
cesses can be in play on a regular basis associated
with tidal flows or wave action, but extreme events,
such as storms, can set up sediment sources and
physical structures, such as sand waves, that may
structure habitats for longer periods (Green &
Coco, 2014; Hall, 1994; Traykovski et al., 1999). As
we will see in Chapter 2 the activities of benthic
organisms are also an important driver of grain size
distribution. On the continental shelf, distribution
reflects bathymetry where finer grains accumulate
in deeper waters and coarser grains persist in an
absence of fine sediment sources and/or persistent
winnowing by near-bed flows. Within estuaries,
variations in grain size are correlated with different
habitats where muds accumulate in some areas and
coarser sands in others. These basic physical set-
tings (sediment supply and hydrodynamics) are
further modified by the presence or activities of
organisms (e.g. seagrass meadows and mangrove
forests may trap fine particles). A detailed review of
the particle grain size analysis methods for marine
sediments can be found in Kenny and Sotheran
(2013).
Size classes used for characterising the sedi­ment­
ary environment follow the sedimentary geology
Wentworth scale, which is a geometric scale that
covers 32 mm, 16 mm, 8 mm, 4 mm and so on
down to 0.0039 mm (Table 1.1; Leeder, 1982). For
Table 1.1 Wentworth description of sediments based on particle
diameter size and the phi scale
Grain size (mm) Phi (Ø) scale Sediment type
>4 <−2 Pebbles–boulders Gravel
2 −1 Granule
1 0 Very coarse sand Sand
0.5 1 Coarse sand
0.25 2 Medium sand
0.125 3 Fine sand
0.0625 4 Very fine sand
0.031 >4–8 Silt Mud
<0.0039 >8–10 Clay
convenience these size classes are often transformed
to the arithmetic phi (Ø) scale which is defined as the
–log2 of the particle size in mm, so that a unit change
in Ø represents a factor of two change in grain size.
Unless the system is high energy, such as a beach
face exposed to waves, or extremely low energy,
accumulating fine silts/clays, most coastal sedi­
ments represent a mixture of size classes reflecting
the complex interactions between supply, physical
transport and ecology. Thus, it is important to con-
sider not only a median grain size but also a sorting
index. This index describes the distribution of par­
ticles in a sample. Although there are a number of
ways to measure sorting, the recommended index is
the Inclusive Graphic Standard Deviation.
Whereas the median grain size and a sorting
­coefficient are sterile numbers, a critical element,
depending on your questions, is either the percent-
age of fine particles or the percentage of coarse
­particles. In a sedimentary matrix these two per-
centages fundamentally change the sediment’s
properties. Thus, we frequently characterise sedi-
ment based on amount of mud (or particles <63 µm
in the silt/clay fraction) according to Folk’s (1954)
terminology, which provides a more informative
summary of the grain size distribution and physical
properties (Figure 1.1).
Grain size and sorting alone are not the only sedi­
ment characteristics useful to measure (Box 1.1). The
other key measures are the sediment porosity and
permeability. Porosity (Ø) is a measure of the void
space between grains (VP) but is presented as a ratio
 T H E S E D I M E N TA RY E N V I R O N M E N T 5

GRAVEL

M Mud
G sM Sandy mud
80 (g)M Slightly gravelly mud
(g)sM Slightly gravelly sandy mud
EL gM Gravelly mud
ca RAV
mG msG sG S Sand
tt EG
le)

mS Muddy sand
(no TAG

(g)S Slightly gravelly sand

os

(g)mS Slightly gravelly muddy sand

EN

30
RC

gmS Gravelly muddy sand

PE

gS Gravel sand
gM gmS gS
G Gravel
5 mG Muddy gravel
msG Muddy sandy gravel
(g)M (g)sM (g)mS (g)S sG Sandy gravel
1

M sM mS S

1:9 1:1 9:1

MUD SAND
SAND:MUD RATIO
(not to scale)

Figure 1.1 Simplified Folk classification system for sediments with mixed particle size ranges. From Figure 1, Long (2006).

in terms of the bulk volume of the sediment (VT; i.e.

Ø = VP/VT) with values ranging from 0 to 1. It can
be easily measured gravimetrically (see Kenny &
Sotheran, 2013). The relationship between grain
size distribution and porosity is somewhat counter-
intuitive; a sandy sediment will have a greater
porosity than a silty sand because the silt particles
clog the interstitial voids, but then as the silt/clay
content increases so does the porosity as the water
content increases (e.g. Kamann et al., 2007).
Permeability (K; m2) is an indication of how easily
water can move through the pore spaces and can be
measured as the rate at which water under a con-
stant head of pressure passes through a sediment
core of known diameter and length (Klute &
Dirksen, 1986). Porosity and permeability are not
necessarily correlated because permeability is a
function of the size of the pore spaces and their
interconnectivity. Muddy sediments can have a
high porosity (water content) but, due to the very
small pore spaces and lack of connectivity, have a
low permeability. Sandy sediment on the other
hand can have a high porosity and permeability.
Box 1.1 Sediments can also be defined as
cohesive or non-cohesive
In non-cohesive sediments the individual grains can be
eroded whereas cohesive sediments stick together and do
not behave as separate particles. This is a property deter-
mined largely by the silt/clay fraction. Non-cohesive sedi­
ments are generally sands with a low silt/clay content
(< ~10%) and are characterised by a high permeability.
However, as the silt/clay content increases, filling the void
spaces and ultimately binding the sediment together, due
to electromagnetic forces, it creates a cohesive sediment
with low permeability. The distinction between these two
sediment types is an important one because it helps
define the erosive behaviour when subjected to increas-
ing currents. It also regulates the non-biologically medi-
ated transport of solutes (such as oxygen and nutrients)
across the sediment–water interface. In cohesive sedi­
ments the process is slow and dominated by molecular
diffusion where solutes must follow a twisted path
through the sediment matrix, whereas in permeable sedi­
ments near-bed flows and pressure variations can induce
much more rapid exchanges of solutes (see section 1.4).
6 E C O L O G Y O F C O A S TA L M A R I N E S E D I M E N T S
In many coastal settings sediment grain size is
not uniform. Whether these sediment mixtures
behave cohesively or non-cohesively depends on
many factors including the fraction of fines; com-
paction and the size ratio of the small and large
fractions; and, of course, ecological processes (see,
e.g. Bartzke et al., 2013; Le Hir et al., 2007; Jacobs
et al., 2011; Staudt et al., 2017 and references therein;
Box 1). The important thing is that relatively small
amounts of fine sediments added to the surface of
sands can cause a shift between these two behav-
iours—a small amount of silt and clay can make a
big difference! If we measure grain size of the near-
surface sediments (0–2 cm) we may see this effect,
but if we take deeper cores to assess the average
grain size of the sediments we may dilute the effects
of these surficial deposits. This is important because
in many coastal areas fine sediment addition has
changed or is changing grain size distribution (see
Chapter 11).
The larger plants and animals can radically
change the physical characteristics of sediments,
for example, by creating faecal pellets that bind
small particles into larger ones or selecting certain
grain sizes to build tubes (see Chapter 2). This led to
consideration about how we should actually define
grain size, but measuring the size of the physical
particles (involving removal of organic matter and
disaggregation) gives us more consistent and com-
parable data. Nevertheless, it is im­ port­ant to
remember that realised grain size distributions,
porosity and permeability may be quite different
than those predicted from inorganic particle size
analysis.
1.3 Flow, waves and the benthic
boundary layer
The characteristics of the near-bed flow play a key
role in regulating solute and particle fluxes to and
from the water column and thus the degree of con-
nectivity between the benthic and pelagic environ-
ments. The interaction between flow, the sediment
and organisms inhabiting the seafloor influences
feeding rates of benthic organisms, supply of
organic matter, resuspension potential of sediments
and thus disturbance regime, recruitment and the
strength of biotic interactions such as adult–ju­ven­ile
interactions. The forces generating flows on the
coastal seabed vary widely in their spatial and tem­
poral scales and include tides, waves, upwelling,
storms and coastal currents. The importance of
flow interactions with microbes, larger plants and
animals will be covered in Chapter 2, here we will
give a general overview of near-bed flows and
their consequences for particle and solute fluxes.
-see Nowell and Jumars (1984), Jumars (1993) and
Boudreau and Jorgensen (2001) for an in-depth
introduction to the physics and consequences of
benthic processes.
Whether flow is likely to be turbulent or laminar
can be assessed by calculating the Reynolds num-
ber (Re), a dimensionless number (i.e. it has no units
so is independent of the scale of observation). It
compares the factors responsible for generating tur-
bulence (fluid speed and an appropriate length
scale that the fluid is interacting with) to those that
dampen it out (viscosity of the fluid). Estimating
the Re for a given situation gives a first-order
approximation as to how quickly mixing will occur
and can also give an indication of the boundary
layer characteristics (Box 1.2).
In coastal environments the thickness and struc-
ture of the benthic boundary layer (BBL) are highly
dynamic, due to spatial and temporal variations in
flow speed and bottom roughness. Under slow,
steady currents the BBL thickness may be tens of cm
but under high flows it may only extend a few cm
above the seabed. Furthermore, as flow speed and/
or bottom roughness increases, the viscous and dif-
fusive layers may disappear altogether and the
logarithmic turbulent layer penetrates all the way
to the bed.
The steepness of the velocity gradient in the BBL
determines the force exerted at the seabed which
influences particle deposition and resuspension.
This force is represented by the bed shear stress (τ;
N m−2 s−1) and it is probably the single most im­port­
ant parameter to know when thinking about flow–
sea bed interactions. It is commonly estimated from
vertical profiles of time-averaged velocity or meas-
urements of turbulence in the BBL (e.g. Kim et al.,
2000) and is often reported as shear velocity
(u* = t / r where ρ is the fluid density). The reason
for this conversion is that the shear stress is
expressed in units of velocity and therefore can be
 T H E S E D I M E N TA RY E N V I R O N M E N T 7

Box 1.2 The benthic boundary layer

A fundamental characteristic of the flow close to the seabed
is the presence of a benthic boundary layer (BBL) and the
flow characteristics of this layer are worth describing
because this is where interactions between the sediments
and water column actually happen. If we assume a constant
current velocity then as we approach the seabed the fric-
tional effects of the sediment extract momentum and the
flow velocity begins to slow down until at the seabed (with
stationary sediment) it approaches zero (Figure 1.2).
This reduction in flow changes the characteristics of the
fluid environment and the BBL can be divided up into differ-
ent sections based on these. The outer logarithmic layer is
characterised by a log decline in the mean flow velocity
toward the bed. Nominally the top of this layer is at 99% of
the freestream flow speed and represents the extent of the
seabed influence on flow speed. In this layer, vertical mixing
is rapid because of turbulence (high-frequency irregular
motions—eddies—of water parcels) that pervades the fluid
undergoing shear at the bed. As we move closer to the sea-
bed, the frictional effects of the sediment begin to exert a
greater impact on the fluid and the turbulence is dampened.
This is called the viscous sublayer and vertical mixing in this
layer is a combination of much slower molecular diffusion
and smaller-scale turbulence and as a consequence is much
slower. Finally, right close to the bed we have the diffusive
sublayer which is where the frictional effects have damp-
ened out all the turbulence and viscous effects (stickiness
between fluid layers) dominate. This means flow tends to
follow streamlines, turbulence is absent and vertical trans-
port of solutes is dominated by molecular diffusion.

Outer layer
Height Above the Bed

Logarithmic layer
Fully turbulent, rapid & intense mixing

Viscous layer
Weak turbulence, vertical mixing = molecular diffusion
0 Diffusive sub-layer
No turbulence, mixing by molecular diffusion
0 Mean Velocity

Figure 1.2 Different layers and flow characteristics of the benthic boundary layer.

used to estimate a Reynolds roughness number
(Re*) which characterises the nature of the flow at
the seabed. When calculating Re* the appropriate
length scale will be the feature that dominates the
seabed roughness at the scale of interest, most com-
monly median grain diameter but it can also be rip-
ples or biogenic structure protruding off the seabed
(for plants and fauna; see Chapter 2). When Re* < 3.5
the BBL will be hydraulically smooth with viscous
and diffusive sublayers, but at values >100 the flow
is hydraulically rough and turbulent with no sub-
layers. The nice thing about Re* (and other dimen-
sionless numbers) is that it highlights how different
combinations of bed roughness and u can generate
similar BBL conditions.
A key modifier of BBL dynamics in coastal set-
tings is the presence of short-period (1–5 s) wind-
driven waves and longer-period (10–50 s) swell
waves on exposed coasts. When the wave orbitals
penetrate to the bed (a function of the water depth,
wave height and frequency), they add a periodic
oscillation of flow acceleration and deceleration in
the BBL created by the mean current. These oscilla-
tions generate additional shear in the BBL and as a
consequence wave–current boundary layers are vir-
tually always hydraulically rough. The detailed
physics of the wave–current boundary layer are
complicated but it is worthwhile noting their
importance for ecological processes. The additional
shear generated by waves is often needed to initiate
8 E C O L O G Y O F C O A S TA L M A R I N E S E D I M E N T S
sediment resuspension and the associated transport/
dispersal of organic matter, sediment porewater
nutrients and organisms. As the waves are primar-
ily generated by passing weather systems this intro-
duces a stochastic element into the frequency and
intensity of sediment transport (see Hall, 1994 for
an ecologically focussed review).
1.4 Consequences of the BBL on
bio-physical processes
The propensity of a sediment to be mobilised is a
function of the sediment grain size (and sorting),
seabed roughness and the force exerted on it by the
BBL. Figure 1.3 shows a simplified relationship
between beds of uniform grain size and the flow
velocity required to erode them. There are funda-
mental differences in the response of non-cohesive
and cohesive sediments to increasing bed shear
stress. Non-cohesive sandy sediment erosion ini-
tially starts as bedload with grains bouncing along
the sediment surface (taking microbes and animals
with them). As the force increases there is enough
energy to move particles into suspension and then
Clay
1,000
100
Flow velocity (cm/s)
10
TRANSPORT
IN SUSPENSION
1
0.1
0.001
Figure 1.3 Annotated Hjulström curve showing transport properties as a function of grain size (see Hjulström, 1935).
they can be carried along with the currents.
Naturally, as grain size increases the shear stress
required to erode non-cohesive sediment also
increases, a simple product of the fact that larger
particles are heavier and more difficult to move.
The behavioural response of cohesive sediments to
increasing shear stress is different and they behave
more like a bed of jelly than individual particles. As
the erosion threshold (the point at which the applied
shear stress causes the sediment bed to release par­
ticles) is exceeded, sediment is ejected (often as
aggregates) directly into the water column (i.e. there
is no bedload transport). Also, somewhat counter-
intuitively, the force required to erode a cohesive
bed increases with decreasing grain size because of
increasing inter-particle electromagnetic forces and
decreasing bed roughness which reduces the force
that can be exerted on particles.
Much of our understanding of sediment resus-
pension and critical erosion thresholds is based on
laboratory studies of single grain sizes. In the real
world, coastal sediments are often comprised of
mixed assemblages of fine and coarse grains which
alters the cohesive properties, and the ability of
water to penetrate the seabed, altering the erosion
Silt Sand Pebble
Erosion
EROSION AND TRANSPORT
curve
AD
LO Deposition
ED
N DB curve
R TA
PO
NS
TRA
DEPOSITION
0.01 0.1 1 10 100
Grain size (mm)
 T H E S E D I M E N TA RY E N V I R O N M E N T 9

dynamics. For example, Bartzke et al. (2013) showed water column. The magnitude of this exchange is
that even small amounts of silt added to a sandy a function of the sediment permeability and the
sediment (a few percent by weight, and well below flows/topography generating the pressure gradient
the amount needed to cause cohesion) filled the (Huettel & Webster, 2001), but in terms of solute
void spaces between sand grains and substantially exchange it is many times more efficient than
increased the flow speed needed to mobilise the molecular diffusion. Advective porewater exchange
bed. Superimposed on this is the capability of ben- also introduces organic matter (Figure 1.4) into the
thic organisms to alter the erosion properties of sediment simultaneously with oxygen where it
sediments (see Chapter 2). This means it is very undergoes rapid decomposition by microbes. As a
­difficult to predict erosion thresholds for coastal result, nutrients are released back to the water col-
­sedi­ments based only on the physical grain size umn. Santos et al. (2012) have estimated that the
­distribution. process of advective porewater exchange in perme-
At flows below the erosion threshold, the BBL can able coastal sediments results in the entire volume
still play a crucial role in regulating solute and par- of the ocean being filtered every 3000 years. It is this
ticle fluxes across the sediment–water interface. In process combined with high rates of primary pro-
permeable sediments (i.e. K > ~ 10−12 m2) pressure duction which contributes to the importance of
differentials generated by passing waves and/or coastal sediments in global biogeochemical cycles.
flow over topography such as ripples induce The sediment surface is a region of strong and
regions of high and low pressure in the sediment, active vertical gradients in reactive solutes such as
which drives a porewater exchange between the oxygen (see section 1.5). In non-permeable cohe-
sediment (to depths of several cm) and the overlying sive sediments (i.e. K < ~ 10−12 m2) where molecular

chl a μg cm–3
(a) 2
1.5
0 1.2
0.9
Height above/below minimum bed elevation (cm)

–2
0.6
–4 0.3
0.0

(b) 2
0
–2
–4

(c) 4 (d) 4 (e)

2 2

0 0

–2 –2
–4 –4

30 50 70 90 110 130 150 170 190 210 4 8 12 16 4 8 12 16

Distance from start of working section (cm) Distance across water tunnel (cm)

Figure 1.4 Diatom biomass measured by chlorophyll a accumulations with increasing bed geometry (a–c). (d) and (e) show a cross section
through a large ripple trough and crest respectively. From Figure 1, Pilditch and Miller (2006). Reprinted from Continental Shelf Research, 26 (15),
Pilditch C A, and Miller D C, Phytoplankton Deposition to Permeable Sediments under Oscillatory Flow: Effects of Ripple Geometry and
Resuspension, 1806–1825., © 2006 reused with permission from Elsevier.
10 E C O L O G Y O F C O A S TA L M A R I N E S E D I M E N T S
­iffusion physically dominates solute exchange,
d that act like parachutes lifting it off the sediment
BBL dynamics can still influence solute concentra-
tion gradients. The demand for oxygen in marine
sedi­ments is high due to aerobic bacterial activity
and the oxidation of reduced solutes moving up
from deeper in the sediments. This demand creates
an oxygen gradient not only in the sediment but
one that can extend into the sublayers of the BBL.
The oxygen gradient in the near-bed water is known
as the diffusion boundary layer (DBL) and its thick-
ness (typically <1 mm) is regulated by a com­bin­
ation of the sediment oxygen demand, concentration
in the overlying water column and the BBL dynam-
ics. Because the DBL is governed in part by the sedi­
ment oxygen demand, its thickness may not
correspond directly to the diffusive and viscous
sublayers of the BBL. Under slow flow, this concen-
tration gradient can extend beyond the diffusion
sublayer of the BBL. Under fast, turbulent flows the
DBL may disappear altogether. The presence or
absence of the DBL will influence oxygen availabil-
ity in surface sediments with implications for aer­
ob­ic bacterial activity (see Glud, 2008 for an in-depth
discussion).
Near-bed flows also play a critical role in the dis-
persal of benthic invertebrates and, as such, an
important role in recovery from disturbances and
meta-community dynamics (Chapter 3). Although
dispersal is discussed in many places within the
book, related to aspects of recovery, design and
biotic interactions, here we briefly describe it from a
flow perspective. Traditionally, the pelagic larval
phase was considered most important for dispersal
as this was a period that they could potentially be
moved long distances by currents. However, storms
may move organisms around passively and it is not
uncommon to see benthic animals washed up on
beaches. Under more typical conditions behaviour
can influence the effect of waves and currents, e.g.
crawling onto the sediment surface can increase the
chances of hitching a ride with the flow (e.g.
Lundquist et al., 2004). This is often particularly
important for juvenile life stages where the organ-
isms are small and easily transported. For example,
the bivalve Macomona when it is 0.5–3 mm long will
move onto the sediment surface and orientate itself
so that its shell behaves a bit like a wing; once it is
ready to go it excretes long proteinaceous threads
surface, allowing dispersal over large scales
(100s–1000s of m). Many benthic species exhibit this
post-settlement dispersal, and what is clear from
field studies is that the diversity and magnitude of
dispersers are functions of the near-bed hydro­
dynam­ics (e.g. Lundquist et al., 2006; Valanko et al.,
2010; see Pilditch et al., 2015 for a review). There is
still much to be done to understand how tem­poral
and spatial variability in the interacting factors
regu­lat­ing dispersal (sediment properties, behav-
iour, species interactions and hydrodynamics)
influence dispersal but such studies are critical to
understanding the dynamics of benthic populations
and communities (Pilditch et al., 2015).
1.5 Organic matter
The quality and quantity of the organic matter
arriving at the sediment surface are critical environ-
mental variables, providing fuel directly for meta-
zoans or indirectly by fuelling microbes for
decomposition that then become food for others. In
general, the organic content of sediments increases
with decreasing grain size because the lower flows
allow the accumulation of low-density particles but
also the increased surface area promotes high bac­
terial biomass.
In coastal environments, organic matter has
numerous sources: primary production in the water
column, detritus from macrophytes such as kelp,
seagrass and mangroves as well as inputs from ter-
restrial ecosystems. In many benthic ecosystems,
organic matter fuels secondary production. Except
in the most turbid regions, the production of the
microphytobenthos at the sedi­ment–water interface
is the major source of organic material (Cahoon,
2002; Hope et al., 2020; Miller et al., 1996).
The input of organic matter is the base of the food
chain of marine sediments and the amount varies
with many factors, including the productivity of the
overlying water column. Food quality is a big issue
and can be coarsely quantified by the carbon to
nitrogen ratio. In general phytoplankton and bac­
teria have lower C:N ratios, typically <10, whereas
macrophyte detritus typically has C:N ratios >20.
Consumers prefer energy sources with lower C:N

ratios (ideally as close to seven as possible, the ratio
in animal tissue) because higher ratios mean more
time (and energy) are expended acquiring sufficient
food to satisfy their N requirements. As well as
these coarse measures of food quality, it is the plants
that synthesise the essential fatty acids needed by
animals (Antonio & Richouz, 2014; Galloway et al.,
2012). Faecal pellets from animals living in the
water column or suspension feeders living on the
seabed are an important source of organic matter
input into seafloor communities. Faecal pellets have
much higher settling velocities (e.g. Giles &
Pilditch, 2004) than the food that produces them
and even after digestion (and any decomposition
occurring on the way down) have a higher organic
content than water column particles naturally set-
tling out. This biological pump is an important
component of benthic–pelagic coupling: i.e. in this
context, the delivery of water column organic mat-
ter to the seabed where it is remineralised by bac­
teria, releasing nutrients that fuel pelagic production
(Graf & Rosenberg, 1997).
1.6 Light and benthic primary production
In shallow coastal waters where light hits the sea-
bed the microphytobenthos and larger macrophytes
(macroalgae and seagrasses) can flourish and give
rise to local production. The amount of light hitting
the seabed is a function of atmospheric conditions,
latitude, time of day and coastal topographic fea-
tures that create shade, water depth and clarity.
Water clarity is strongly affected by phytoplankton
in the water column, dissolved organic matter like
tannins from land that stain the water and im­port­
ant­ly the input and resuspension of fine sediments.
The amount of light hitting the seafloor regulates
benthic primary production and in turbid estuaries
the loss of this production has been a contributing
factor to accelerating eutrophication (Chapter 11).
Although on a per-area basis primary production
by benthic macrophytes can greatly exceed that of
unvegetated habitats, it is the ubiquitous microphy-
tobenthos (MPB) that fuel many coastal foodwebs
(e.g. Christianen et al., 2017; Jones et al., 2017). MPB
consist of diatoms, dinoflagellates and cyano­bac­
teria (McIntyre et al., 1996) growing within the first
several mm of the surface sediment and can often
T H E S E D I M E N TA RY E N V I R O N M E N T 11
be seen as a greenish or brownish tinge. In more
oligo­troph­ic settings MPB production can exceed
pelagic production because they have ready access
to nutrients stored in the sediment porewater. Their
value in coastal foodwebs arises because they are
easily digestible, rich in lipids and proteins, have
high turnover rates and have not undergone
­pre-processing by pelagic consumers and so do not
arrive as faecal pellets (Hope et al., 2020). In the Dutch
Wadden Sea a stable isotope study showed that MPB
were the most important food source for benthic
invertebrates and given these organisms support
higher trophic levels (fish, birds and seals) this further
underlines their importance (Christianen et al., 2017).
MPB are ecologically important beyond their
value as food for higher trophic levels (Hope et al.,
2020). Light is attenuated rapidly in sediments and
a lack of nutrients in the photic zone means MPB
undertake vertical migrations to access them
(Consalvey et al., 2004). To aid these migrations,
diatoms in particular excrete extracellular polysac-
charides (EPS), a sticky mucus-like substance that
binds the sediment together. In cohesive sediments
(or non-cohesive sediments with a substantial silt/
clay content) the EPS can fill the void spaces, bind-
ing sediment and particles, thus leading to a marked
increase in sediment stability, making it less prone
to erosion (see Chapter 2). Photosynthesis in surface
sediment layers can also alter the distribution of
oxygen, increasing the volume of sediment that
then supports more efficient decomposition of
organic matter by aerobic bacteria, affecting nutri-
ent cycling (see section 1.8). MPB also trap nutrients
at the sediment surface, preventing their release
to the water column. In shallow coastal systems
undergoing eutrophication, this sink of nutrients
helps slow the eutrophication spiral where con-
tinual release of nutrients from decomposing
organic matter in the sediments fuels further pelagic
production.
1.7 Sediment biogeochemistry
Even at small scales (m2) coastal marine sediments
are extremely heterogeneous with respect to their
physical properties (e.g. grain size, sorting) and
concentrations of reactive solutes such as oxygen.
12 E C O L O G Y O F C O A S TA L M A R I N E S E D I M E N T S
This heterogeneity arises primarily as a result of the
interactions between the activities of the resident
macrofauna community and the microbial commu-
nity (both the bacteria that are decomposing organic
matter and the photosynthesising MPB). For
ex­ ample, burrow irrigation by shrimps (e.g.
D’Andrea & DeWitt, 2009) may deliver oxygen
deep into the sediments whereas bulldozing heart
urchins leave faecal pellets that become hotspots of
bacterial activity (Lohrer et al., 2004; Solan &
Wigham, 2005). In Chapter 2 we explore more
­animal–sediment interactions but just as we have
described the physical aspects of the sediment,
there is value in considering the basic chemical
implications of bacteria and organic matter down
the sediment column.
The upper few centimeters of the sediment are
one of the most extreme chemical gradients on the
planet where transition occurs from an aerobic to an
anaerobic environment. These gradients are driven
by the physical characteristics of the sediment as
well as the microbial communities and, in a world
without large plants and animals, are vertically
structured according to the bacterial respiration
pathways during the decomposition of organic
matter. The coastal sediments (which comprise
<10 percent of the ocean­ic seafloor) are estimated
to be responsible for processing ~30 percent of the
world’s oceanic carbon (Smith & Hollibaugh, 1998)
and during the decomposition regenertating essen-
tial nutrients. As we will see later in the book,
Eh pH
5 10
–200 0 +200 +400
mV
6 7 8
0 100 200 300
H2S
Figure 1.5 Sediment profiles of redox potential, pH, oxygen, hydrogen sulphide, iron, methane, carbon dioxide and nitrogenous species.
human-induced changes in sediment organic mat-
ter decomposition and nutrient cycling pathways
can extend into the water column, negatively
impacting the entire ­ecosystem.
If you were to carefully dig a small hole in a typ­
ical coastal sediment you would most likely see
three distinct layers distinguished by their colour
(and smell). These represent substantial shifts in the
metabolic pathways of bacteria responsible for
organic matter decomposition. The first major
active zone in most coastal sediments is the surface
oxic layer which appears as a yellow/brown layer
that morphs into grey before immediately being
replaced by reduced black anoxic sediment with a
smell of rotten eggs (hydrogen sulphide). In the
decomposition pathways, aerobic respiration in the
surface yellow/brown layer releases the most
energy and aerobes will outcompete other res­pir­
ation pathways. The concentration of oxygen in a
microbially dominated sediment decreases expo-
nentially from the sediment surface to the redox
potential dis­con­tinu­ity (RPD) where no free oxygen
exists (Figure 1.5). The availability of oxygen is
measured by the redox potential (Eh); once the oxy-
gen is used up anaerobic processes dominate and
control chemical speciation.
The thickness of the oxic reaction zones in sedi­
ments is variable and as a consequence so too is the
efficiency with which organic matter is remineral-
ised. The thickness of the oxic layer is a balance
between supply and demand, the sediment grain
Sediment surface
O2 Fe+e+ CO2 NO3–
15 Yellow layer
mg/l
NO2–
Gray
RPD layer
Fe+e
NH3
CH4 Black layer
0 2 4%
400
mg/l
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clustered around the brink of the pit to drink from the stores gathered
in those natural bowls which seem to have been hollowed out for the
uses of the invisible gnomes.
Beyond Cascade Hall commences Silliman’s Avenue, a passage
about twenty feet wide, forty or fifty in height, and a mile and a half in
length.
Our lamps were replenished and we entered El Ghor, which is by far
the most picturesque avenue in the cave. It is a narrow, lofty
passage meandering through the heart of a mass of horizontal strata
of limestone, the broken edges of which assume the most
remarkable forms. Now there are rows of broad, flat shelves
overhanging your head; now you sweep around the stern of some
mighty vessel with its rudder set hard to starboard; now you enter a
little vestibule with friezes and mouldings of almost Doric symmetry
and simplicity; and now you wind away into a Cretan labyrinth most
uncouth and fantastic, whereof the Minotaur would be a proper
inhabitant. It is a continual succession of surprises, and, to the
appreciative visitor, of raptures. The pass is somewhat more than a
mile and a half in length, and terminates in a curious knot or
entanglement of passages leading to two or more tiers of avenues.
We were now, according to Stephen’s promises, on the threshold of
wonders. Before proceeding further we stopped to drink from a fine
sulphur spring which fills a natural basin in the bottom of a niche
made on purpose to contain it. We then climbed a perpendicular
ladder, passing through a hole in the ceiling barely large enough to
admit our bodies, and found ourselves at the entrance of a narrow,
lofty passage leading upwards. When all had made the ascent the
guides exultingly lifted their lamps and directed our eyes to the rocks
overhanging the aperture; there was the first wonder, truly! Clusters
of grapes gleaming with blue and violet tints through the water which
trickled over them, hung from the cliffs, while a stout vine, springing
from the base and climbing nearly to the top, seemed to support
them. Hundreds on hundreds of bunches clustering so thickly as to
conceal the leaves, hang forever ripe and forever unplucked in that
marvellous vintage of the subterranean world. For whose hand shall
squeeze the black, infernal wine from grapes that grow beyond
Lethe?
Mounting for a short distance, this new avenue suddenly turned to
the left, widened, and became level; the ceiling is low, but beautifully
vaulted, and Washington’s Hall, which we soon reached, is circular,
and upwards of a hundred feet in diameter. This is the usual dining-
room of parties who go beyond the rivers. Nearly five hours had now
elapsed since we entered the cave, and five hours spent in that
bracing, stimulating atmosphere might well justify the longing
glances which we cast upon the baskets carried by the guides. Mr.
Miller had foreseen our appetites, and there were stores of venison,
biscuit, ham, and pastry, more than sufficient for all. We made our
midday, or rather midnight meal sitting, like the nymph who wrought
Excalibur

“Upon the hidden bases of the hills,”

buried far below the green Kentucky forests, far below the forgotten
sunshine. For in the cave you forget that there is an outer world
somewhere above you. The hours have no meaning: Time ceases to
be; no thought of labour, no sense of responsibility, no twinge of
conscience intrudes to suggest the existence you have left. You walk
in some limbo beyond the confines of actual life, yet no nearer the
world of spirits. For my part, I could not shake off the impression that
I was wandering on the outside of Uranus or Neptune, or some
planet still more deeply buried in the frontier darkness of our solar
system.
Washington Hall marks the commencement of Elindo Avenue, a
straight hall about sixty feet wide, twenty in height, and two miles
long. It is completely encrusted from end to end with crystallizations
of gypsum, white as snow. This is the crowning marvel of the cave,
the pride and the boast of the guides. Their satisfaction is no less
than yours, as they lead you through the diamond grottoes, the
gardens of sparry efflorescence, and the gleaming vaults of this
magical avenue. We first entered the “Snow-ball Room,” where the
gnome-children in their sports have peppered the grey walls and
ceiling with thousands of snow-white projecting discs, so perfect in
their fragile beauty, that they seem ready to melt away under the
blaze of your lamp. Then commences Cleveland’s Cabinet, a gallery
of crystals, the richness and variety of which bewilder you. It is a
subterranean conservatory, filled with the flowers of all the zones; for
there are few blossoms expanding on the upper earth but are
mimicked in these gardens of Darkness. I cannot lead you from
niche to niche, and from room to room, examining in detail the
enchanted growths; they are all so rich and so wonderful that the
memory does not attempt to retain them. Sometimes the hard
limestone rock is changed into a pasture of white roses; sometimes it
is starred with opening daisies; the sunflowers spread their flat discs
and rayed leaves; the feathery chalices of the cactus hang from the
clefts; the night-blooming cereus opens securely her snowy cup, for
the morning never comes to close it; the tulip is here a virgin, and
knows not that her sisters above are clothed in the scarlet of shame.
In many places the ceiling is covered with a mammary crystallization,
as if a myriad bubbles were rising beneath its glittering surface. Even
on this jewelled soil which sparkles all around you, grow the lilies
and roses, singly overhead, but clustering together towards the base
of the vault, where they give place to long, snowy, pendulous cactus-
flowers, which droop like a fringe around diamonded niches. Here
you see the passion-flower, with its curiously curved pistils; there an
iris with its lanceolate leaves; and again, bunches of celery with
stalks white and tender enough for a fairy’s dinner. There are
occasional patches of gypsum, tinged of a deep amber colour by the
presence of iron. Through the whole length of the avenue there is no
cessation of the wondrous work. The pale rock-blooms burst forth
everywhere, crowding on each other until the brittle sprays cannot
bear their weight, and they fall to the floor. The slow, silent
efflorescence still goes on, as it has done for ages in that buried
tropic.
What mostly struck me in my underground travels was the evidence
of design which I found everywhere. Why should the forms of the
earth’s outer crust, her flowers and fruits, the very heaven itself
which spans her, be so wonderfully reproduced? What laws shape
the blossoms and the foliage of that vast crystalline garden? There
seemed to be something more than the accidental combinations of a
blind chance in what I saw—some evidence of an informing and
directing Will. In the secret caverns, the agencies which produced
their wonders have been at work for thousands of years, perhaps
thousands of ages, fashioning the sparry splendours in the womb of
darkness with as exquisite a grace, as true an instinct of beauty as in
the palm or the lily, which are moulded by the hands of the sun.
What power is it which lies behind the mere chemistry of Nature,
impregnating her atoms with such subtle laws of symmetry? What
but Divine Will, which first gave her being, and which is never weary
of multiplying for man the lessons of His infinite wisdom?
At the end of Elindo Avenue the floor sinks, then ascends, and is at
last blocked up by a huge pile of large, loose rocks. When we had
reached the foot, the roof of the avenue suddenly lifted and
expanded, and the summit of the Rocky Mountains, as they are
called, leaned against a void waste of darkness. We climbed to the
summit, about a hundred feet above, whence we looked down into
an awful gulf, spanned far above our heads by a hollow dome of
rock. The form of this gigantic hall was nearly elliptical. It was
probably 150 feet in height, by 500 in length, the ends terminating
near the roof in the cavernous mouths of other avenues. The guides
partly descended the hill and there kindled a brilliant Bengal light,
which disclosed more clearly the form of the hall, but I thought it
more impressive as its stupendous proportions were first dimly
revealed by the light of our lamps. Stephen, who discovered this
place, gave it the name of the Dismal Hollow.
Scrambling along the ridge of the Rocky Mountains, we gained the
entrance to the cavern opening on the left, which we followed for
about two hundred yards, when it terminated in a lofty circular dome,
called Crogan’s Hall. The floor on one side dropped suddenly into a
deep pit, around which were several cushions of stalagmite,
answering to short stalactites, hanging from the ceiling far above. At
the extremity of the hall was a sort of recess, formed by stalactitic
pillars. The wall behind it was a mass of veined alabaster. “Here,”
said Stephen, “is your Ultima Thule. This is the end of the Mammoth
Cave, nine miles from daylight.” But I doubt whether there is really
an end of the cave any more than an end of the earth.
Notwithstanding the ground we had traversed, we had left many vast
avenues unexplored, and a careful search would no doubt lead to
further discoveries.
We retraced our steps slowly along Elindo Avenue, stopping every
few minutes to take a last look at the bowers of fairy blossoms. After
reaching Washington’s Hall we noticed that the air was no longer
still, but was flowing fresh and cool in our faces. Stephen observed it
also, and said: “There has been a heavy rain outside.” Entering the
pass of El Ghor again at Martha’s Vineyard, we walked rapidly
forward, without making a halt, to its termination at Silliman’s
Avenue. The distance is reckoned by the guides at a little more than
a mile and a half, and we were just forty minutes in walking it. We
several times felt fatigue, especially when passing the rougher parts
of the cave, but the sensation always passed away in some
unaccountable manner, leaving us fresh and buoyant. The crossing
of the rivers was accomplished with some labour, but without
accident. I accompanied Stephen on his return through the second
arch of Echo River. As I sat alone in the silent, transparent darkness
of the mysterious stream, I could hear the tones of my boatman’s
voice gliding down the caverns like a wave, flowing more and more
faintly until its vibrations were too weak to move the ear. Thus, as he
sang, there were frequently three or four notes, each distinctly
audible, floating away at different degrees of remoteness. At the last
arch there was only a space of eighteen inches between the water
and the rock. We lay down on our backs in the muddy bottom of the
boat, and squeezed through to the middle branch of Echo River,
where we found the rest of the party, who had gone round through
Purgatory.
After again threading Fat Man’s Misery, passing the Bottomless Pit
and the Deserted Chambers, we at last emerged into the Main
Avenue at the Giant’s Coffin. It was six o’clock, and we had been ten
hours in the cave.
When we heard the tinkling drops of the little cascade over the
entrance, I looked up and saw a patch of deep, tender blue set in the
darkness. In the midst of it twinkled a white star—whiter and more
dazzling than any star I ever saw before. I paused and drank at the
trough under the waterfall, for, like the Fountain of Trevi at Rome, it
may be that those who drink there shall return again. When we
ascended to the level of the upper world we found that a fierce
tornado had passed along during the day; trees had been torn up by
the roots and hurled down in all directions; stunning thunders had
jarred the air, and the wet earth was fairly paved with leaves cut off
by the heavy hail—yet we, buried in the heart of the hills, had heard
no sound, nor felt the slightest tremour in the air.
The stars were all in their places as I walked back to the hotel. I had
been twelve hours under ground, in which I had walked about
twenty-four miles. I had lost a day—a day with its joyous morning, its
fervid noon, its tempest, and its angry sunset of crimson and gold;
but I had gained an age in a strange and hitherto unknown world—
an age of wonderful experience, and an exhaustless store of sublime
and lovely memories.
At Home and Abroad (New York, 1864).
 STROMBOLI
(SICILY)
ALEXANDRE DUMAS
As we advanced, Stromboli became more and more distinct every
moment, and through the clear evening air we could perceive every
detail; this mountain is formed exactly like a hay-mow, its summit
being surmounted by a peak; it is from this summit that the smoke
escapes, and, at intervals of a quarter of an hour, a flame; during the
daytime this flame does not apparently exist, being lost in the light of
the sun; but when evening comes, and the Orient begins to darken,
this flame becomes visible and you can see it dart forth from the
midst of the smoke which it colours, and fall again in jets of lava.
Towards seven o’clock we reached Stromboli; unfortunately the port
is in the east, and we came from the west; so that we had to coast
along the whole length of the island where the lava descended down
a sharp slope into the sea. For a breadth of twenty paces at its
summit and a hundred and fifty at its base, the mountain at this point
is covered with cinders and all vegetation is burned.
The captain was correct in his predictions: we arrived half an hour
after the port had been closed; all we could say to make them open
to us was lost eloquence.
However, the entire population of Stromboli had run to the shore.
Our Speronare was a frequent visitor to this harbour and our sailors
were well known in the island.... It was in Stromboli that Æolus held
bound the luctantes ventos tempestatesque sonoras. Without doubt,
at the time of the song of Æneas, and when Stromboli was called
Strongyle, the island was not known for what it really is, and hid
within its depths the boiling masses and periodical ejaculations
which make this volcano the most obliging one in the world. In sooth,
you know what to expect from Stromboli: it is not like Vesuvius or
Etna, which make the traveller wait sometimes three, five or even ten
years for a poor little eruption. I have been told that this is doubtless
owing to the position they hold in the hierarchy of fire-vomiting
mountains, a hierarchy that permits them to be aristocratic at their
own pleasure: this is true enough; and we must not take it amiss if
Stromboli allows her social position to be assailed an instant, and to
have understood that it is only a little toy volcano to which one would
not pay the slightest attention if it made itself so ridiculous as to put
on airs.
Moreover, it did not keep us waiting. After scarcely five minutes’
expectation, a heavy rumbling was heard, a detonation resembling
twenty cannon fired in succession, and a long jet of flame leaped into
the air and fell again in a shower of lava; a part of this shower fell
again into the crater of the volcano, while the other, rolling down the
slope hurried like a brooklet of flame to extinguish itself, hissing, into
the sea. Ten minutes later the same phenomenon was repeated, and
at every succeeding ten minutes throughout the night.
I admit that this was one of the most curious nights I ever spent in
my life; neither Jadin nor I could tear ourselves away from this
terrible and magnificent spectacle. There were such detonations that
the very atmosphere seemed excited, and you imagined the whole
island trembling like a frightened child; it was only Milord that these
fire-works put into a state of exaltation impossible to describe; he
wanted to jump into the water every moment to devour the burning
lava which sometimes fell ten feet from us, like a meteor precipitating
itself into the sea.
As for our boatswain, he was so accustomed to this spectacle, that,
after asking if we needed anything and upon our reply in the
negative, he retired between decks and neither the lightnings that
illuminated the air nor the thunders that shook it had power to disturb
his slumbers.
We stayed here until two o’clock; finally, overcome with fatigue and
sleep, we decided to retire to our cabin. As for Milord, nothing would
persuade him to do as we did and he stayed all night on deck,
growling and barking at the volcano.
We woke in the morning at the first movement of the Speronare.
With the return of daylight the mountain lost all its fantastic
appearance.
We constantly heard the detonations; but the flame had become
invisible; and that burning lava stream of the night was confused in
the day with the reddish ashes over which it rolls.
Ten minutes more and we were again in port. This time we had no
difficulty in entering. Pietro and Giovanni got off with us; they wished
to accompany us on our ascent.
We entered, not an inn (there are none in Stromboli), but a house
whose proprietors were related to our captain. As it would not have
been prudent to have started on our way fasting, Giovanni asked
permission of our hosts to make breakfast for us while Pietro went to
hunt for guides,—a permission not only accorded to us with much
grace but our host also went out and came back in a few moments
with the most beautiful grapes and figs that he could find.
After we had finished our breakfast, Pietro arrived with two
Stromboliotes who consented, in consideration of half a piastre each,
to serve as guides. It was already nearly eight o’clock: to avoid a
climb in the greatest heat of the day, we started off immediately.
The top of Stromboli is only twelve or fifteen hundred feet above the
level of the sea; but its slope is so sharp that you cannot climb in a
direct manner, but must zigzag eternally. At first, on leaving the
village, the road was easy enough; it rose in the midst of those vines
laden with grapes that make the commerce of the island and from
which the fruit hangs in such great quantity that any one may help
himself to all he wants without asking the permission of the owner;
however, upon leaving the region of the vineyards, we found no
more roads, and we had to walk at random, looking for the best
ground and the easiest slopes. Despite all these precautions, there
came a moment when we were obliged to scramble on all fours:
there was nothing to do but climb up; but this place once passed, I
vow that on turning around and seeing it, jutting almost
perpendicularly over the sea, I asked in terror how we could ever
descend; our guides then said that we would come down by another
road: that pacified me a little. Those who like myself are unhappy
enough to have vertigo when they see a chasm below their feet will
understand my question and still more the importance I attached to
it.
This break-neck spot passed, the ascent became easier for a quarter
of an hour; but soon we came to a place which at the first glance
seemed impassable; it was a perfectly sharp-pointed angle that
formed the opening of the first volcano, and part of which was cut out
perpendicularly upon the crater while the other fell with so sharp a
slope to the sea that it seemed to me if I should fall perpendicularly
on the other side I could not help rolling from top to bottom. Even
Jadin, who ordinarily climbs like a chamois without ever troubling
about the difficulties of the ground, stopped short when we came to
this passage, asking if there was not some way to avoid it. As you
may imagine, this was impossible.
The crater of Stromboli is formed like a vast funnel, from the bottom
and the centre of which is an opening through which a man can
enter a little way, and which communicates with the internal furnace
of the mountain; it is through this opening, resembling the mouth of a
canon, that the shower of projectiles darts forth, which, falling again
into the crater, sweeps with it down the inclined slope of stones the
cinders and lava that, rolling to the bottom, block up that funnel.
Then the volcano seems to gather its forces together for several
minutes, compressed as it is by the stoppage of its valve; but after a
moment its smoke trembles like a breath; you hear a deep roaring
run through the hollow sides of the mountain; then the cannonade
bursts forth again, throwing up two hundred feet above the summit
new stones and new lava, which, falling back and closing the orifice
of the passage anew, prepare for a new outburst.
Seen from where we were, that is from top to bottom, this spectacle
was superb and terrifying; at each internal convulsion that the
mountain essayed, you felt it tremble beneath you, and it seemed as
if it would burst asunder; then came the explosion, similar to a
gigantic tree of flame and smoke that shook its leaves of lava.
Finally, we reached the extremity of this new lake of Sodom, and we
found ourselves in an oasis of vines, pomegranates and olives. We
had not the courage to go any farther. We lay down in the grass, and
our guides brought us an armful of grapes and a hatful of figs.
It was marvellous to us; but there was not the smallest drop of water
for our poor Milord to drink, and we perceived him devouring the skin
of the figs and grapes. We gave him part of our repast, and for the
first, and probably for the last, time in his life he dined off figs and
grapes.
I have often a desire to put myself in the place of Milord and write his
memoirs as Hoffmann wrote those of his cat, Murr. I am convinced
that he must have had, seen from the canine point of view, (I beg the
Académie’s pardon for the expression) extremely new impressions
of the people and countries that he has visited.
A quarter of an hour after this halt we were in the village, writing
upon our tablets this judicious observation—that the volcanoes
follow but do not resemble each other: we were nearly frozen when
ascending Etna, and we were nearly roasted when descending
Stromboli.
Jadin and I each extended a hand towards the mountain and swore
that notwithstanding Vesuvius, Stromboli was the last volcano whose
acquaintance we would make.
Le Capitaine Aréna: Impressions de Voyage (Paris, 1836).
 THE HIGH WOODS
(SOUTH AMERICA)
CHARLES KINGSLEY
In the primeval forest, looking upon that which my teachers and
masters, Humboldt, Spix, Martius, Schomburgk, Waterton, Bates,
Wallace, Gosse, and the rest, had looked already, with far wiser eyes
than mine, comprehending somewhat at least of its wonders, while I
could only stare in ignorance. There was actually, then, such a sight
to be seen on earth; and it was not less, but far more wonderful than
they had said.
My first feeling on entering the high woods was helplessness,
confusion, awe, all but terror. One is afraid at first to venture in fifty
yards. Without a compass or the landmark of some opening to or
from which he can look, a man must be lost in the first ten minutes,
such a sameness is there in the infinite variety. That sameness and
variety make it impossible to give any general sketch of a forest.
Once inside, “you cannot see the woods for the trees.” You can only
wander on as far as you dare, letting each object impress itself on
your mind as it may, and carrying away a confused recollection of
innumerable perpendicular lines, all straining upwards, in fierce
competition, towards the light-food far above; and next on a green
cloud, or rather mist, which hovers round your head, and rises,
thickening and thickening to an unknown height. The upward lines
are of every possible thickness, and of almost every possible hue;
what leaves they bear, being for most part on the tips of the twigs,
give a scattered, mist-like appearance to the under-foliage. For the
first moment, therefore, the forest seems more open than an English
wood. But try to walk through it, and ten steps undeceive you.
Around your knees are probably Mamures, with creeping stems and
fan-shaped leaves, something like those of a young cocoanut palm.
You try to brush among them, and are caught up instantly by a string
or wire belonging to some other plant. You look up and round: and
then you find that the air is full of wires—that you are hung up in a
network of fine branches belonging to half-a-dozen different sorts of
young trees, and intertwined with as many different species of
slender creepers. You thought at your first glance among the tree-
stems that you were looking through open air; you find that you are
looking through a labyrinth of wire-rigging, and must use the cutlass
right and left at every five steps. You push on into a bed of strong
sedge-like Sclerias, with cutting edges to their leaves. It is well for
you if they are only three, and not six feet high. In the midst of them
you run against a horizontal stick, triangular, rounded, smooth,
green. You take a glance along it right and left, and see no end to it
either way, but gradually discover that it is the leaf-stalk of a young
Cocorite palm. The leaf is five-and-twenty feet long, and springs from
a huge ostrich plume, which is sprawling out of the ground and up
above your head a few yards off. You cut the leaf-stalk through right
and left, and walk on, to be stopped suddenly (for you get so
confused by the multitude of objects that you never see anything till
you run against it) by a grey lichen-covered bar, as thick as your
ankle. You follow it up with your eye, and find it entwine itself with
three or four other bars, and roll over with them in great knots and
festoons and loops twenty feet high, and then go up with them into
the green cloud over your head, and vanish, as if a giant had thrown
a ship’s cable into the tree-tops. One of them, so grand that its form
strikes even the Negro and the Indian, is a Liantasse. You see that at
once by the form of its cable—six or eight inches across in one
direction, and three or four in another, furbelowed all down the
middle into regular knots, and looking like a chain cable between two
flexible iron bars. At another of the loops, about as thick as your arm,
your companion, if you have a forester with you, will spring joyfully.
With a few blows of his cutlass he will sever it as high up as he can
reach, and again below, some three feet down; and, while you are
wondering at this seemingly wanton destruction, he lifts the bar on
high, throws his head back, and pours down his thirsty throat a pint
or more of pure cold water. This hidden treasure is, strange as it may
seem, the ascending sap, or rather the ascending pure rain-water
which has been taken up by the roots, and is hurrying aloft, to be
elaborated into sap, and leaf, and flower, and fruit, and fresh tissue
for the very stem up which it originally climbed; and therefore it is
that the woodman cuts the Watervine through first at the top of the
piece which he wants, and not at the bottom; for so rapid is the
ascent of the sap that if he cut the stem below, the water would have
all fled upwards before he could cut it off above. Meanwhile, the old
story of Jack and the Bean-stalk comes into your mind. In such a
forest was the old dame’s hut; and up such a bean-stalk Jack
climbed, to find a giant and a castle high above. Why not? What may
not be up there? You look up into the green cloud, and long for a
moment to be a monkey. There may be monkeys up there over your
head, burly red Howler, or tiny peevish Sapajou, peering down at
you; but you cannot peer up at them. The monkeys, and the parrots,
and the humming-birds, and the flowers, and all the beauty, are
upstairs—up above the green cloud. You are in “the empty nave of
the cathedral,” and “the service is being celebrated aloft in the
blazing roof.”

THE HIGH WOODS.

We will hope that as you look up, you have not been careless
enough to walk on; for if you have you will be tripped up at once: nor
to put your hand out incautiously to rest it against a tree, or what not,
for fear of sharp thorns, ants, and wasps’ nests. If you are all safe,
your next steps, probably, as you struggle through the bush between
the tree-trunks of every possible size, will bring you face to face with
huge upright walls of seeming boards, whose rounded edges slope
upward till, as your eye follows them, you will find them enter an
enormous stem, perhaps round, like one of the Norman pillars of
Durham nave, and just as huge; perhaps fluted, like one of William of
Wykeham’s columns at Winchester. There is the stem: but where is
the tree? Above the green cloud. You struggle up to it, between two
of the broad walls, but find it not so easy to reach. Between you and
it, are a half-a-dozen tough strings which you had not noticed at first
—the eye cannot focus itself rapidly enough in this confusion of
distances—which have to be cut through ere you can pass. Some of
them are rooted in the ground, straight and tense; some of them
dangle and wave in the wind at every height. What are they? Air-
roots of wild Pines, or of Matapalos, or of Figs, or of Seguines, or of
some other parasite? Probably: but you cannot see. All you can see
is, as you put your chin close against the trunk of the tree and look
up, as if you were looking up against the side of a great ship set on
end, that some sixty or eighty feet up in the green cloud, arms as big
as English forest trees branch off; and that out of their forks a whole
green garden of vegetation has tumbled down twenty or thirty feet,
and half climbed up again. You scramble round the tree to find
whence this aërial garden has sprung: you cannot tell. The tree-trunk
is smooth and free from climbers; and that mass of verdure may
belong possibly to the very cables which you meet ascending into
the green cloud twenty or thirty yards back, or to that impenetrable
tangle, a dozen yards on, which has climbed a small tree, and then a
taller one again, and then a taller still, till it has climbed out of sight
and possibly into the lower branches of the big tree. And what are
their species? What are their families? Who knows? Not even the
most experienced woodman or botanist can tell you the names of
plants of which he only sees the stems. The leaves, the flowers, the
fruit, can only be examined by felling the tree; and not even always
then, for sometimes the tree when cut refuses to fall, linked as it is
by chains of liane to all the trees around. Even that wonderful water-
vine which we cut through just now may be one of three or even four
different plants.
Soon, you will be struck by the variety of the vegetation; and will
recollect what you have often heard, that social plants are rare in the
tropic forests. Certainly they are in the Trinidad; where the only
instances of social trees are the Moras (which I have never seen
growing wild) and the Moriche palms. In Europe, a forest is usually
made up of one dominant plant of firs or of pines, of oaks or of
beeches, of birch or of heather. Here no two plants seem alike.
There are more species on an acre here than in all the New Forest,
Savernake, or Sherwood. Stems rough, smooth, prickly, round,
fluted, stilted, upright, sloping, branched, arched, jointed, opposite-
leaved, alternate-leaved, leafless, or covered with leaves of every
conceivable pattern, are jumbled together, till the eye and brain are
tired of continually asking “What next?” The stems are of every
colour—copper, pink, grey, green, brown, black as if burnt, marbled
with lichens, many of them silvery white, gleaming afar in the bush,
furred with mosses and delicate creeping film-ferns, or laced with air-
roots of some parasite aloft. Up this stem scrambles a climbing
Seguine with entire leaves; up the next another quite different, with
deeply-cut leaves; up the next the Ceriman spreads its huge leaves,
latticed and forked again and again. So fast do they grow, that they
have not time to fill up the spaces between their nerves, and are
consequently full of oval holes; and so fast does its spadix of flowers
expand, that (as do some other Aroids) an actual genial heat, and
fire of passion, which may be tested by the thermometer, or even by
the hand, is given off during fructification. Beware of breaking it, or
the Seguines. They will probably give off an evil smell, and as
probably a blistering milk. Look on at the next stem. Up it, and down
again, a climbing fern which is often seen in hothouses has tangled
its finely-cut fronds. Up the next, a quite different fern is crawling, by
pressing tightly to the rough bark its creeping root-stalks, furred like
a hare’s leg. Up the next, the prim little Griffe-chatte plant has
walked, by numberless clusters of small cats’-claws, which lay hold
of the bark. And what is this delicious scent about the air? Vanille?
Of course it is; and up that stem zigzags the green fleshy chain of
the Vanille Orchis. The scented pod is far above, out of your reach;
but not out of the reach of the next parrot, or monkey, or Negro
hunter, who winds the treasure. And the stems themselves: to what
trees do they belong? It would be absurd for one to try to tell you
who cannot tell one-twentieth of them himself. Suffice it to say, that
over your head are perhaps a dozen kinds of admirable timber,
which might be turned to a hundred uses in Europe, were it possible
to get them thither: your guide (who here will be a second hospitable
and cultivated Scot) will point with pride to one column after another,
straight as those of a cathedral, and sixty to eighty feet without
branch or knob. That, he will say, is Fiddlewood; that a Carapo, that
a Cedar, that a Roble (oak); that, larger than all you have seen yet, a
Locust; that, a Poui; that, a Guatecare; that an Olivier, woods which,
he will tell you, are all but incorruptible, defying weather and insects.
He will show you, as curiosities, the smaller but intensely hard Letter
wood, Lignum vitæ, and Purple heart. He will pass by as useless
weeds, Ceibas and Sandbox-trees, whose bulk appalls you. He will
look up, with something like a malediction, at the Matapalos, which,
every fifty yards, have seized on mighty trees, and are enjoying, I
presume, every different stage of the strangling art, from the baby
Matapalo, who, like one which you saw in the Botanic Garden, has
let down his first air-root along his victim’s stem, to the old sinner
whose dark crown of leaves is supported, eighty feet in air, on
innumerable branching columns of every size, cross-clasped to each
other by transverse bars. The giant tree on which his seed first fell
has rotted away utterly, and he stands in its place, prospering in his
wickedness, like certain folk whom David knew too well. Your guide
walks on with a sneer. But he stops with a smile of satisfaction as he
sees lying on the ground dark green glossy leaves, which are fading
into a bright crimson; for overhead somewhere there must be a
Balata, the king of the forest; and there, close by, is his stem—a
madder-brown column, whose head may be a hundred and fifty feet
or more aloft. The forester pats the side of his favourite tree, as a
breeder might that of his favourite race-horse. He goes on to evince
his affection, in the fashion of West Indians, by giving it a chop with
his cutlass; but not in wantonness. He wishes to show you the
hidden virtues, of this (in his eyes) noblest of trees—how there
issues out swiftly from the wound a flow of thick white milk, which will
congeal, in an hour’s time, into a gum intermediate in its properties
between caoutchouc and gutta-percha. He talks of a time when the
English gutta-percha market shall be supplied from the Balatas of
the northern hills, which cannot be shipped away as timber. He tells
you how the tree is a tree of a generous, virtuous and elaborate race
—“a tree of God, which is full of sap,” as one said of old of such—
and what could he say better, less or more? For it is a Sapota,
cousin to the Sapodilla, and other excellent fruit-trees, itself most
excellent even in its fruit-bearing power; for every five years it is
covered with such a crop of delicious plums, that the lazy Negro
thinks it worth his while to spend days of hard work, besides
incurring the penalty of the law (for the trees are Government
property), in cutting it down for the sake of its fruit. But this tree your
guide will cut himself. There is no gully between it and the
Government station; and he can carry it away; and it is worth his
while to do so; for it will square, he thinks, into a log more than three
feet in diameter, and eighty, ninety—he hopes almost a hundred—
feet in length of hard, heavy wood, incorruptible, save in salt water;
better than oak, as good as teak, and only surpassed in this island
by the Poui. He will make a stage round it, some eight feet high, and
cut it above the spurs. It will take his convict gang (for convicts are
turned to some real use in Trinidad) several days to get it down, and
many more days to square it with the axe. A trace must be made to it
through the wood, clearing away vegetation for which a European
millionaire, could he keep it in his park, would gladly pay a hundred
pounds a yard. The cleared stems, especially those of the palms,
must be cut into rollers; and the dragging of the huge log over them
will be a work of weeks, especially in the wet season. But it can be
done, and it shall be; so he leaves a significant mark on his new-
found treasure, and leads you on through the bush, hewing his way
with light strokes right and left, so carelessly that you are inclined to
beg him to hold his hand, and not destroy in a moment things so
beautiful, so curious, things which would be invaluable in an English
hothouse.
And where are the famous Orchids? They perch on every bough and
stem; but they are not, with three or four exceptions, in flower in the
winter; and if they were, I know nothing about them—at least, I know
enough to know how little I know. Whosoever has read Darwin’s
Fertilization of Orchids, and finds in his own reason that the book is
true, had best say nothing about the beautiful monsters till he has
seen with his own eyes more than his master.
And yet even the three or four that are in flower are worth going
many a mile to see. In the hothouse, they seem almost artificial from
their strangeness: but to see them “natural,” on natural boughs,
gives a sense of their reality, which no unnatural situation can give.
Even to look up at them perched on bough and stem, as one rides
by; and to guess what exquisite and fantastic form may issue, in a
few months or weeks, out of those fleshy, often unsightly leaves, is a
strange pleasure; a spur to the fancy which is surely wholesome, if
we will but believe that all these things were invented by A Fancy,
which desires to call out in us, by contemplating them, such small
fancy as we possess; and to make us poets, each according to this
power, by showing a world in which, if rightly looked at, all is poetry.
Another fact will soon force itself on your attention, unless you wish
to tumble down and get wet up to your knees. The soil is furrowed
everywhere by holes; by graves, some two or three feet wide and
deep, and of uncertain length and shape, often wandering about for
thirty or forty feet, and running confusedly into each other. They are
not the work of man, nor of an animal; for no earth seems to have
been thrown out of them. In the bottom of the dry graves you
sometimes see a decaying root: but most of them just now are full of
water, and of tiny fish also, who burrow in the mud and sleep during
the dry season, to come out and swim during the wet. These graves
are some of them, plainly quite new. Some, again, are very old; for
trees of all sizes are growing in them and over them.
What makes them? A question not easily answered. But the
shrewdest foresters say that they have the roots of trees now dead.
Either the tree has fallen and torn its roots out of the ground, or the
roots and stumps have rotted in their place, and the soil above them
has fallen in.
But they must decay very quickly, these roots, to leave their quite
fresh graves thus empty; and—now one thinks of it—how few fallen
trees, or even dead sticks, there are about. An English wood, if left to
itself, would be cumbered with fallen timber; and one has heard of
forests in North America, through which it is all but impossible to
make way, so high are piled up, among the still-growing trees, dead
logs in every stage of decay. Such a sight may be seen in Europe,
among the high Silver-fir forests of the Pyrenees. How is it not so
here? How indeed? And how comes it—if you will, look again—that
there are few or no fallen trees, and actually no leaf-mould? In an
English wood there would be a foot—perhaps two feet—of black soil,
renewed every autumn leaf fall. Two feet? One has heard often
enough of bison-hunting in Himalayan forests among Deodaras one
hundred and fifty feet high, and scarlet Rhododendrons thirty feet
high, growing in fifteen or twenty feet of leaf-and-timber mould. And
here in a forest equally ancient, every plant is growing out of the
bare yellow loam, as it might in a well-hoed garden bed. Is it not
strange?
Most strange; till you remember where you are—in one of nature’s
hottest and dampest laboratories. Nearly eighty inches of yearly rain
and more than eighty degrees of perpetual heat make swift work with
vegetable fibre, which, in our cold and sluggard clime, would curdle
into leaf-mould, perhaps into peat. Far to the north, in poor old
Ireland, and far to the south, in Patagonia, begin the zones of peat,
where dead vegetable fibre, its treasures of light and heat locked up,
lies all but useless age after age. But this is the zone of illimitable
sun-force, which destroys as swiftly as it generates, and generates
again as swiftly as it destroys. Here, when the forest giant falls, as
some tell me that they have heard him fall, on silent nights, when the
cracking of the roots below the lianes aloft rattles like musketry
through the woods, till the great trunk comes down, with a boom as
of a heavy gun, re-echoing on from mountain-side to mountain-side;
then—

“Nothing in him that doth fade

But doth suffer an air! change