PODCAST · arts

World's Lumber Room, The by Selina Gaye (1840 - 1914)

by LibriVox

If this book were written today, it would be called "The Story of the World's Rubbish".That may not sound a promising subject for a book, but we are taken on a journey all over the world (and beyond) to explain the many varieties of dust and refuse - animal, vegetable and mineral - how it is made both by man and by nature, what happens to it, and why we need it. We find that recycling is nothing new: man has been doing it for centuries, and nature has been doing it for billions of years. As every schoolboy knows, 'matter is neither created nor destroyed', so it stands to reason that every particle of it must be somewhere.This study of our knowledge of the earth was written for the layman before most of the -ologies were even a twinkle in a professor's eye. Geology, meteorology, hydrology, biology, glaciology and even sociology and anthropology all have their place in this readable and enjoyable tour of the earth's 'lumber room'.Though some of the sci