MOHR.

Ciimate and Soil 250

'CLIMATE AND SOIL IN THE NETHERLANDS INDIES
b
E. C. J. MOHR, Ph.D.*
,
Extension Agronomist, Colonial Instilute of Amsterdam; late Director, Genera1
AgriculCural Experiment Station, Buitenzorg; late Geologist and Pedologist, Dept.
of Agriculture, Bultenzorg; Speciul Professor of Soil Science, University of Utrecht.
Points on which the Netherlands Indies differ
intrinsically from both Europe and the United
States of America are climate and soil. To say
that the Netherlands Indies are located in t he
tropics, is to put the case too vaguely. This ex-
pression - the tropics - covers the whole broad
belt between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn,
or between 23" N. lat. and 23"s. lat. But within
this vast belt itself great differences of climate
are found and the strip between 10" N lat. and
10" S. lat., within which t he lndies lie, is quite
distinct from the regions flanking it on either side
and may be appropriately called the tropical zone
in a special sense. The fact t hat ' t he Indies do
not form part of a continent, but are a group of
islands, accentuates this tropical character very
greatly, particularly as regards rainfall.
The first thing to realize is that in the Nether-
lands Indies the seasons do not vary in the same
way as they do in Europe. For instance;in those
regions there is no summer, when days are long
and nights short, t o be followed by winter in
which the converse is true. Apart from a small
variation of about twenty minutes a t the extreme
North and extreme South of the archipelago, the
* Reprinted from Btrll. of the Colo~tial I~tslitule of Amster-
dam 1:241-251 (19381.
days and nights all over the Indies are each about
twelve hours long all the year round. As in this
region of the earth the sun in its daily course as-
'
cends and descends almost perpendicularly t o t he
horizon, the periods of dawn and dusk are always
short.
As every day at noon the sun stands high in t he
heavens and shines for the same length of time,
or very nearly, it is clear that the daily variations
of temperature will be practically the same at
every point in the archipelago. Particularly hot
or particularly cold days differ but a few degrees
from the average. But curiously enough it seems
to be the very slightness of this variation which
makes human beings so sensitive t o such changes
of temperature as do occur. As a matter of fact,
,
in the Netherlands Indies the thermometer very
seldom registers what one thinks of as tropical
heat, but then we must reflect that temperature
is but one of several factors in respect t o atmos-
pheric conditions as affecting t he human senses.
The maximum temperature at sea-level hardly
ever exceeds 33" Centigrade there, while in
Europe or the U.S.A. it often reaches 38" or
40" C., and in Arabia and Southern Persia even
45" or 50" C. On the other hand the temperature
at night shows a smaller drop inside the zone re-
ferred t o than outside it, and seldom falls below
MOHR: Climate and Soil
23" or perhaps 21" C. The daily margin being so
slight and the temperature moving practically
between the same limits every day, it is small
wonder that even at the depth of only one metre
the soil shows no variation in temperature a t all,
-remaining constant a t 25' or 26" C. (at sea level).
In Europe a constant soil-temperature could only
be expected at about ten times this depth.
There are large stretches of low-lying, flat
country in the Netherlands Indies, but the archi-
pelago also includes highlands where considerable
altitudes are reached. The higher one goes, the
cooler it gets. Every 160 metres makes a differ-
ence of l0 C.; at a height of 1600 metres, or almost
5000 feet, the average temperature is, therefore,
15" t o 16" C., rising t o perhaps 210r 22" C. in the
course of the day and dropping at night to 10' or
11" C. - a delightful climate, this, as regards
temperature; one in which we humans can enjoy
life and feel perfectly comfortable. At 2400
metres the average temperature is about 10" C.
This same figure is well known as the mean an-
nual temperature of many places in Western
Europe, but it would be a mistake t o conclude
from this fact that therefore a community of Eu-
ropeans would find equally appropriate condi-
tions for living in both regions. For though the
'
average temperature is the same in both, there is
one great difference which must not be forgotten.
In Western Europe the average winter temper-
ature is 0" C. and the average summer temper-
ature 20" C.; in the tropics the temperature in
these seasons varies hardly 1" instead of 20" C.,
which, for the veovle who live there. means what
ERNSTHAECK~L, <he great German biologist of the
nineteenth century, called "the everlasting same-
ness", and which- certainly does not pr duce a
stimulating effect on the human organism - not
I to mention such extremely important factors as
the influence of a practically constant temper-
ature on the vegetation itself and on t he activities
of micro-organisms in the soil. The only varia-
tion the weather undergoes is due to thanges of
moisture, cloudiness or rainfall. And these
changes may be traced to one of two causes, one
local in origin, the other general.
The local cause usually arises on or near the
slopes of high mountains or mountain ranges in
the various islands. During the morning hours
the sun shines on these and on th6 coastal areas
and warms them more than it does the adjacent
sea. The air above the land also gets warmer
than that which is above the water; it becomes
lighter, rises and is replaced by air coming in from
the sea. This movement causes a current of very
damp air flowing from the sea t o the mountain
slopes; as it rises, the air cools, the vapour con-
denses to form heavy cumulous clouds and heavy
rain, often accompanied by a sharp thunder-
storm, until during the afternoon equilibrium is
established once more. Towards sundown and
during the night, t he land gets cooler than t he
sea. Consequently the cooler air from the moun-
tain descends to the sea and thereby becomes
slightly warmer again, while remaining clear
under the clear, starlit sky. Next day the same
series of changes recurs - clear morning, then
clouds, rain, clear weather once more; unless,
indeed, monsoon winds produce a change in the
usual sequence.
These monsoon winds are not local in origin
and constitutethe general cause referred to above.
They arise in the following manner: In June the
sun is far to the North. At this season it is hot in
Southern Asia and comparatively cold in Austra-
lia. Over Asia cyclonic conditions prevail, in
other words, in S.E. Asia the prevailing wind is
from the S.W.; this changes its course and be-
comes South Easterly in so far as it comes from
South of the equator in the Netherlands Indies.
Over Australia an anti-cyclonic condition pre-
vails, causing a South East wind across Northern
Australia, which arrives in the Netherlands In-
dies as a dry wind from S.E. to E. This dry East
monsoon blows from May to September, or even a
little longer, especially in the Southern portion
of the archipelago. The further North or West it
gets, the less strongly it is felt.
In December t he sun stands far to the South,
above the central part of Australia. This means
that t he cyclone is now there, and that conse-
quently the prevailing wind blowing across
Northern Australia and South of the archipelago
is from South West t o West. At this season it is
cold in Asia, which fact causes a North East wind
that, on crossing the equator, turns into a North
West wind. This wind is noted everywhere
throughout the Indies as a wet monsoon, espe-
cially when it blows conjointly with the South
Westerly Ocean breeze caused by Australia.
Wherever it meets highland country or moun-
tains on its course, it causes heavy rains, espe-
-
cially on the West coast of Sumatra, in Java,
Borneo and Celebes.
Rain or dry weather in the plains is a matter
depending chiefly on the dry monsoon; but on the
sides of the mountains the rainfall is only in-
creased or decreased by this wind. Hence there
are regions where it rains practically every day of
the year,because the dry monsoon does not pen-
etrate there. The portion of Sumatra near the
equator, almost 'the whole of Borneo and large
portions of New Guinea are cases in point; on
the other hand we find regions, such as the North-
ern coastal part of East Java and the Small Sunda
Islands, where the East monsoon is very dry and
lasts very long. Between these two extremes are
all sorts of intermediate conditions. But there is
hardly a spot in the whole of the Netherlands
Indies where it does not rain hard for at least
three or four months of the year.
The heavy rainfall of between 1 t o 7 metres
per year, which is particularly characteristic of
these tropical areas, strongly affects the soil and
consequently the vegetation. For the abundance
of rain-water not only wets the soil, but most
distinctly leaches it at the same time. All sub-
stances that are soluble in water, however slight
the solubility may be, are dissolved in the long
run and finally carried away into the depths of
' the earth to springs, and thence to rivers and to
the sea. This process also takes place in t he very
damp portions of the temperate zones, but there
it works much more slowly, firstly, because the
rainfall is less, and secondly because the temper-
ature is lower -a circumstance which greatly
decreases solubility. -
A1very significant point is the fact that among
these soluble substances are those which serve
t o feed the vegetation. Hence we may say that
in all tropical regions the soil is constantly being
impoverished, is everywhere tending to a final
condition which would make all vegetable growth
impossible, because it would mean that plant
food was entirely lacking. Fortunately there are
a number of factors which greatly, in some cases
very greatly, retard the process towards this
fatal end, or even very largely prevent its accom-
MOHR: Climate and Soil I
plishment. Human welfare demands that we
should know exactly what these factors are and,
if possible, learn to promote their action.
I t is obvious that leaching decreases with the
rainfall. Hence in areas where the dry East
monsoon is felt, the soil is generally compara-
tively fertile, and what is more, retains its fertil-
ity comparatively long. This rule applies all
over the globe. All old civilizations which have
been able to hold their own for many centuries
have had little rain. Cases In point are Mexico,
Peru, Carthage, Egypt, Palestine, Mesopotamia,
India, China. The most highly developed cul-
tures that have appeared in the Netherlands In-
dies flourished in Middle Java, East Java, and
the islands of Bali and Lombok, that is, in areas
where the total yearly rainfall was not more than
two metres and the East monsoon was strongly
felt.
The lower the temperature, the less intensive
the leaching. This is why often the leaching of
the soil on the sides of the mountains and on the
plateaux is less advanced than at the foot of the
' mountains and in the lowlands. This comparison
only holds good when the areas compared have
an equal and similar rainfall. Examples drawn
from the Netherlands Indies are seldom really
telling, because the rains that fall there on moun-
tain slopes a t high altitudes are often very
heavy. In such regions the greater quantity of
rain-water compensates the lower temperature.
As eruptive rocks disintegrate and decompose,
soil is produced. This soil always contains clay
and this clay possesses the faculty of absorbing
plant-food from the water circulating in the soil,
and discharges it very slowly. This absorption
counteracts the leaching process and retards it.
Humus performs a more or less similar function.
Soil rich in clay and humus impoverishes slowly;
quartz-sandy soil impoverishes quickly. Luckily
the rocks in Java do not contain much quartz and
hence there is little quartz-sand in the soil there,
but in many parts of Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes
and New Guinea the soil is rich in that sterile
mineral, quartz This same is true of the Congo
and many parts of Europe and America.
In t he tropics humus is always at a disadvan-
tage, forthe higher the temperature,thegreaterthe
rate at which the humus is decomposed and min-
eralized, whenever moisture and air are plentiful.
For this reason the soil in low-lying areas con-
tains relatively little humus, particularly where
forests have been absent for a long period of time.
The higher we go, the cooler it is, the richer the
soil is in humus. Hence it is on the mountain
slopes that the flourishing tea and cinchona plan-
tations are to be found; the best are on newly
cleared forest-land.
In the tropics rain almost always comes down
in the form of a sudden downpour such as in Eu-
rope would certainly be termed a cloud-burst.
This type of rain-storm produces another effect
on the soil besides the chemical leaching de-
scribed abqve, namely, mechanical surface wash-
Ing, or eroslon. Whenever the ground slopes even
slightly, the rain-water, streaming down swiftly
over its surface, carries away soil, in particular
t he valuable top-soil containing humus. After a
number of such heavy showers have fallen on an
open piece of arable land all the top-soil is washed
away into the brooks and rivers and transported
t o the lowlands and the sea, and nothing remains
but the naked sub-soil. When this has occurred
on an estate, we may say that it has lost most of
the capital value represented by the soil, espe-
cially where the sub-soil is old, leached out, senile.
In such cases it is very difficult to induce new
vegetation to grow on this very poor soil. If the -
sub-soil is not yet worn out but still juvenile, t he
task will be easier and the results more promising;
but even then it can only be accomplished by
means of hard work and much care.
But, curiously enough, once this completely ex-
hausted sub-soil has come to the surface, only
further erosion can save the situation. For t he
layer of senile soil which has come to the top
must be washed away, so as to expose a more
.juvenile layer as a suitable bearer of a new cycle
of vegetation, either wild or cultivated. Be that
as it may, however, as long as there is natural
wood humus left in the soil of the tropics, erosion
there is as great a calamity as i t is in temperate
climates (U.S.A.).
Furthermore, in certain parts of the archipel-
ago -on the Small Sunda Islands, for instance
-there are clear signs of wind erosion as well as
water erosion. This, too, carries away much of
the top-soil at times, when the land has become
thoroughly dried out, cracked and crumbly after
a long East monsoon. Heavy clay soil which is
fairly well able to withstand the action of rain-
water flowing over its surface, falls a prey t o
strong winds during the dry season and is blown
away as dust.
So far we have only spoken of impoverishment
- and occasional enrichment - of arable land
by the top-soil being carried away. But t he
opposite often occurs too. The wind -and even
more frequently running water - supplies new
soil here and there by covering certain areas with
sand and dust or silt and clay. Whether the con-
tribution so obtained improves the land or not,
depends on the quality of the new soil-covering
material and this again depends on whether t he
imported elements come from a region where sur-
face erosion prevails generally, i.e., affects the
whole surface equally, or from one where this
erosion takes the form of gullying. In t he
former case the silt carried by the water will con-
sist chiefly of fertile top-soil; in the latter it is as a
rule barren material brought to the surface from
some considerable depth. Where the silt is likely
to be fertile, an effort wlll be made to promote
flooding as much as possible, while keeping it en-
tirely under control by means of technically well-
constructed irrigation works; where it consists of
barren material, precautionary measures will be
taken to prevent flooding as much as may be, and
irrigation will be resorted to but sparingly and
with special care.
All factorsmentioned hitherto ascontributingto
the postponement or prevention of the complete
exhaustion of the wet soil of the tropics are really
subsidiary t o one radical factor which may at any
time suddenly bring about a fundamental change
in the whole situation, namely, t he action of
young volcanoes. By this we mean t he action of
volcanoes that are young, not in the geological
sense of belonging to the quarternary, in this case
the holocene period, but in the sense that they
have been active within the historical period, and
preferably so young that they have been active
during the present century - are active still, in
fact.
In the Indies such volcanoes are chiefly found
in Java, but there are also some in Bali and Lom-
bok and on some of the other Small Sunda Is-
lands, in Celebes, and finally, in certain parts of
MOHR: Climate and Soil
Sumatra. These all belong to the type which
eject great quantities of ashes, sand and stones
over the surrounding country. This means thor-
ough rejuvenation of the soil in the areas con-
cerned.
- At first everything in the immediate neighbour-
hood of the centre of eruption, on the slopes of the
mountain, is in ruins, buried under all those
ejecta. But it is surprising how quickly a new
surface becomes covered with a fresh mantle of
vegetation. A quarter of a century is often suf-
ficient to bring this about. This fact was noted
in connection with the eruption of Krakatau in
1883, of Klut in 1902 and again in 1919. If there
is no immediate recurrence of the eruption, the
new soil remains extraordinarily fertile for cen-
turies, to be finally subjected once more to grad-
ual impoverishment as a result of leaching by
tropical rains.
Hence we may fitly apply the old Latin adage
to the soil of the tropics in the more limited,;ense
referred to at the beginning of this article: Igne
natura renovatur integra." Lacking that vol-
canic fire, the soil would deteriorate completely,
whether slowly or quiclcly, and the means a t
man's disposal for counteracting this process of
impoverishment are, after all, only makeshifts,
important though they be from our human stand-
poht.
-
Soil conditions actually obtaining in the Neth-
erlands Indies and, mutatis rnuta?rdzs, in other
tropical areas in Asia and South America cor-
roborate the views roughly outlined above.
I t is no mere fortuitous circumstance that Java
is the most highly developed of all the islands, but
the inevitable outcome of natural conditions. A
considerable number of volcanoes which have
been active within recent centuries, or even
decades, have repeatedly brought about complete
rejuvenation of the soil of the surrounding coun-
try. Here in Java we find cinchona and tea plan-
tations - both very exacting cultures - on the
slopes of the volcanoes, and on the plains at their
foot -thanks to the highly developed irrigation
system - rice, sugar and several other crops.
But those parts of the island which lie beyond the
sphere of volcanic influence are obviously several
degrees less valuable from the agricultural point
of view. ForLunately such areas are compara-
tively rare in Java.
In Sumatra the distribution is different. There,
fine volcanic areas are in the minority, occurring
only in the North in the Battaklands and Deli; in
the central portion along the Western coast and
in the highlands of Padang; and in South Su-
matra in the Palembang highlands; but all these
added together form but a small fraction of this
great island. Furthermore in comparing Sumatra
with Java, we must remember two things: Firstly,
that the dry East monsoon only touches the
Southern portion of Sumatra, and only reaches it
when much reduced in strength. Hence t he
leaching of the soil is continuous in these regions,
for there is scarcely a spot where an average rain-
fall lower than 100 mm. is ever registered for any
month of the year whatever. Secondly, not all
volcanic products are of the same nature. In
p ma t r a the ejecta often belong t o the more
acid" type, while in Java they are more " ba-
sic"; which means that in Sumatra they contain
more silicic acid, in Java more calcium, magnesia,
iron and phosphoric acid. Furthermore, in Java
potassium is found in a more easily assimilable
form than in Sumatra. In short, the ejecta in
Java are more fertile and produce better soil for
agricultural purposes than those of Sumatra. If
the reader should be inclined to observe that
there are volcanic areas on the latter island not
included in the above list, he should remember
that these are the districts where the acid ejecta
predominate.
From the above it follows - particularly if we
consider that vast areas in Sumatra are entirely
outside the range of volcanic influence -that
this island as a whole will never be as fertile or as
intensively cultivated as Java, unless, indeed,
countless volcanoes become active there and thus
rejuvenate and improve the soil by scattering
first-class volcanic ash over it, as for instance
1Cral;atau did all over the Southernmost portions
of Sumatra, when it erupted in 1883. Sixty-five
years ago the Lampong Districts were territory In
which there was very little doing; since 1883 this
region has revived; it is being developed agricul-
turally; European enterprises flourish there and
we find immigration from Java to join already
prosperous "colonies" of migrants from that
island. The impulse that led to all this activity
was given by the volcano.
Celebes differs in many respects from both
Java and Sumatra. There, too, we find young
volcanic areas, chiefly in the North Eastern pen-
insula, or the Minahasa, and these produce fertile
soil. The same may be said of the South West-
em peninsula. As might be expected, these are
the most prosperous and most densely populated
parts of the island. The remaining portions,
namely, the central part with its two protrusions
extending North East and South East respec-
tively, possess no volcanoes, nor any agriculture
t o speak of - at most coco-nut groves here and
there along the coast -because the soil there
does not encourage agriculture. And the popula-
tion is much less dense here than in the Minahasa
and the S.S.W. portion of the island.
Now if we look at Borneo and New Guinea -
we are considering only the Netherlands section
of the latter - we find that these two islands are
entirely devoid of volcanoes. No need to search
for juvenile volcanic soil-types there, for there
are none. Nowhere is the soil of such a character
that it could be used without previous special
preparation t o grow food crops for a number of
consecutive years. There are areas that present
the necessary physical characteristics but all the
soil has reached an advanced state of senility as a
result of continuous leaching. Rubber trees and
the like demand very little from their surround-
ings and will grow on the recently deposited -
alluvial soil as it is, but in almost all other cases
a crop needs manure, either animal or artificial.
Under these circumstances only crops that fur-
nish highly valuable products can be made t o
pay, and even then there comes a time when
previously effective measures prove vain. A case
in point is t he now extinct tobacco-growing in-
dustry in British North Borneo. Where at an
earlier date the jungle lvas forced to make room
for plantations, the jungle has once more made
good its claim to the land.
To comment on all the other islands of the
archipelago would lead us far beyond the scope of
this article. We will mention only one or two
points. It is interesting to note that in the early
days the Netherlands United East India Com-
pany settled in the Moluccas, on the islands oi
Ternate, Tidore, Ambon and Banda. The object
was to cultivate valuable spices such as cloves,
MOHR: Soil and Population Density 254
nutmeg and mace. Curiously enough, all these
islands are volcanic. Buru, Ceram and Misool
are much larger, but not volcanic, and these the
company ignored.
In the Small Sunda Islands group we have Bali
dominated by Mount Batur, Lombok by Mount
Rinjani. These two volcanoes have provided
their respective territories with first-rate juvenile
soil, on which has arisen a dense,-prosperous and
highly cultivated population. Sumba, on t he
other hand, has had very little volcanic influence,
its dreary, desert-like wastes being composed
chiefly of bare, calcareous rocks. All there is of
good soil is washed or blown from the highlands
into the lowlands and hence we find, besides the
very poor, utterly deserted areas mentioned
above, also fairly prosperous plains.
The above may be summarized as follows: I t is true that a _
fall of rain may be a blessing to an agricultural area parched
from drought, but i t is eclually true t hat in the tropical zone
in the narrower sense of the term - the zone in which the
Netherlands Indies are s~t uat ed -too much rain is bad
and. further. t hat abundant rainfall is the cause of continu-
ally increasing impoverishment of the soil. The only regen-
eration of the soil that spells radical improvement is that
produced by volcano_es. Without active volcanoes the
future can only mean retrogression. But retrogression may
be greatly retarded and counteracted by human action.
This last is the splendid task of the science of agriculture.
Much has already been achieved along this line, and
probably much more will be achieved i n the future.
THE RELATION BETWEEN SOIL AND POPULATION
DENSITY IN THE NETHERLANDS INDIES
by
E. C. J. MOHR, Ph.D.*
Extension ~gronomi st , Colonial Institute of Amsterdam; late Director, Gkneral
Agricultural Experiment Station, Buitenzorg; late Geologist and Pedologist, Dept.
of Agriculture, Buitenzorg; Special Professor of Soil Science, University of Utrecht.
If we wish to make a study of the relation be-
tween population density and soil, we must con-
fine ourselves to regions where the distribution
is not dependent, or at least not altogether de-
pendent, on means of subsistance which are
entirely, or almost entirely, independent of the
nature of the soil, such as trade (import-trade,
export-trade, transit-trade); minlng; industry
based on mined raw materials, or on materials
brought from a distance and the like. We must
confine ourselves, then, to spe~i$cally agri~iltural
areas, where agriculture and horticzrltz~re and
forestry are the only, or at least by far the most im-
portant, means of earnine a living.
As the Netherlands Indies is still at the present
time largely an agricultural region of this kind,
i t is a particularly suitable object of study in
connection with our problem. Thanks to the
excellent Census, taken in 1930,' we know fairly
well what the population is in different parts of
the archipelago. These figures show that the
density varies from less than one to more than a
thousand souls per km2. In other words t he
differences are enormous. Hence to treat the
whole archipelago as if it were a uniform area
and could be studied as such is out of the ques-
tion.
For, while the average for the whole territory
is put at 31.89, we find Java and NIadura run-
ning up to 316.11 and on the other hand,. fhe
Outer Provinces falling t o 10.73 -a surprising
contrast indeed. And within the Outer Prov-
inces themselves we meet with very great dif-
ferences. For Bali and Lombok the figure is
175.18, for Celebes 22.39, for Sumatra 17.43 and
then again there is'Borneo with 4.02 and New
Guinea with 0.73. Hence we will consider the
islands and islands groups separately first and
then finally compare these very greatly varying
territories with each other.
*Reprinted from Cornfiles Reizdus du CongrZs Itzlertta-
lional de Gboarajltie, Amsterdam, 1938, Tome Deuxibme,
Section IIIc, pp. 478-493 (1938).
l The Report 1s be~ng published in a seties of volumes, the
first of which appeared i n 1933.
1. JAVA. If we examine the large volumes
containing the Census Returns for 1930! we find
that t o each of its several parts deallng with
West Java (I), Central Java (11) and East Java
plus Madura (111) is appended a map on which
the country is divided into administrational
units called districts and coloured in eight shades
indicating population density. Those who do
not know Java and its soil will learn little from
those maps and see nothing but colours showing
that the population is very dense in and around
'
the big cities, and further, that there are certain
districts where there are less than 75 inhabitants
per km2; many where there are between 150 and
500, and several with between 500 and 1000 al-
though they do not include a large city. But as
soon as we begin to notice the topography and
geology of Java, the climate and the soil types of
the different parts of the island, these maps be-
gin to take on a greater significance for us.
In general we may assume that where the soil
is good and fertile, agricultural crops will bring
in a rich harvest, with the result t hat the popu-
lation which cultivated them is not only satisfied
with past success, but is, further, inspired to
bring more and more land under cultivation.
If on the other hand the harvest is poor, the
tendency will be t o cultivate more intensively
or to move away to another place where more
success may be anticipated.
On the island of Java - and as we shall see
later, this redly applies to the whole of the
Netherlands Indies - experience has shown that
the most fertile soil ty@es are related to volcanoes.
We find them on their slopes, at their base and
in the basins of rivers, the water and silt o,f
which comes from a volcano. But such volcanoes
must be recent, must have been active within the
most recent geological period or be active still.
Old 'volcanoes are covered with more or less
worn-out, senile soil, which, still cultivable and
physically good for vegetation, is very much
impoverished. On and round a recent volcano
the soil is usually composed of or derived from
volcanic ashes and sand, in fact often contains