Professor Walter L. Kubiëna, the founder of soil micromorphology and a great leader of modern soil science, here brings together the results of forty-plus years of comparative research on the nature and development of the soils of the earth. In it he applies field and laboratory micromorphological methods to the study of soils in all the climatic zones of the world, from the Equator to the polar regions. Not only does he parallel Einstein’s field- effect concept of the world hut he elaborates a unified concept of the total soils system as it is controlled by environmental factors in space and time.
After a review of the principles of microscopic examination of soils, Professor Kubiëna describes the environmental factors and primitive biotic activity which lead to the development of soil on bare rock. In an unusual series of microphotographs he shows the pathways of organic decomposition and how plant and animal residues are converted into humus.
Major sections of the book are devoted to soil formation on limestone and on silicate rocks in different latitudes and different altitudes of the temperate zone. The various soilforming factors and resultant morphologies are discussed, together with the effect of different combinations of time and environment on soil development. Of special interest in the last connection are the discussions of relict soils and soils of polygenetic origin.

Based on his wide experience in tropical and Mediterranean countries, Professor Kubiëna has developed a new body of information on the character and micromorphogenesis of their soils. An understanding of the soil development tendencies explains, for example, why certain soils of the semidry tropics, the subtropics, and the Mediterranean region lose their fertility after too much cultivation, and are therefore useless for purposes of practical agriculture. Also of great interest are his discussions of lateritic soils and of soil formation on volcanic deposits and the broad geochemical principles of alteration on these materials. A vivid account of desert dynamics suggests the complexities of the soil system of desert regions.
Here then is a book which deals with the classification and description of soil fabrics and relates soils and soil processes to environmental conditions and to geomorphic events on a global basis. It explains how and why soils of various types develop and offers a view of the total soils system and the rules that govern it.
The text is supplemented by tables and figures and also by eighty-nine color microphotographs of organic and mineral fabrics—the most comprehensive catalogue of its kind ever to be published.