Water, Ice & Stone. Bill Green
PRAISE FOR
Water, Ice & Stone
“[Green’s] prose rings with the elemental clarity of the ice he knows so well.” —PEN Awards Committee citation
“Nature writing of a very high order…. A joyride for those who enjoy deep explorations of logic, human frailty and the laws of nature.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“Brilliant…. Resembles at various times the work of Stephen Jay Gould, Loren Eiseley and Barry Lopez, but also Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table and the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins and the writer of Ecclesiastes. It’s the kind of book that makes the reviewer want to quote whole paragraphs.” —Plain Dealer
“Among his many accomplishments, [Green] offhandedly makes the vocabulary of science accessible to the lay reader. He is at ease in the kingdom of poetry—just as much as he is (warily) at ease in the frozen and eerily beautiful Antarctic landscape.” —Boston Globe
“Some of the prettiest prose ever devoted to the subject of water and lakes and rivers, clouds and rain and fog. A beautiful little book; it will go on the shelf with the other books I read for the love of their words.” —Houston Chronicle
“A lucid, wondrous account…. This authoritative yet lyrical book blends science with art in the enthusiasm that Green feels at being the creator of a new understanding where none was before.” —Winston-Salem Journal
“Compelling…. This book is not only filled with wonder, but also hope.” —Cincinnati Post
“A magical work of meditation and precise science.” —ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment
“Poetic and passionate…. Green affirms the fact that science, like art, is rooted in pure imagination.” —Booklist (starred review)
“Wonderful…. In evocative language, Green successfully moves between arresting natural history and sophisticated but accessible philosophy of science…. With gripping accounts of a number of near death experiences added to the mix, the whole is a thoroughly enjoyable and remarkably informative exposition of the life of a field scientist.” —Publishers Weekly
“Finely honed flashes of pure scientific writing.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Poetic and narrative science of a high order. Chemistry, rather geochemistry, has found its Lewis Thomas, its Loren Eiseley.” —Edwin Dobb, former editor, The Sciences
“Its celebration of nature blends, with stunning success, the scientist’s ability to observe and the poet’s disciplined passion.” —Guy Guthridge, Program Manager, National Science Foundation Antarctic Program
“From a windswept landscape of chilling beauty, Green crafts a pure poem—of lake waters mixing, of geochemical change, of the intimate molecular structure of not-so-simple water. It is many years since I’ve read as lucid and human a portrait of a science as this one.” —Roald Hoffmann, Nobel Laureate and author of Chemistry Imagined: Reflections on Science
“I am deeply impressed by Water, Ice & Stone—it deserves to be savored one page at a time.” —Joshua Lederberg, Nobel Laureate
“A delightful book in which Antarctica’s lakes become, in Thoreau’s phrase, ‘an earth’s eye’ to blend the universal and the personal. This is geochemistry made into geopoetry.” —Stephen J. Pyne, author of The Ice: A Journey to Antarctica
“In the waters of permanently frozen Antarctic lakes, Green strikes Heraclitean fire. He reminds us that scientific knowledge can be an instrument of personal growth and divine revelation.” —Chet Raymo, author of The Path: A One-Mile Walk Through the Universe
water, ice and stone
Science and Memory on the Antarctic Lakes
Bill Green
Bellevue Literary Press
New York
First published in the United States in 2008 by
Bellevue Literary Press
New York
For information, contact:
Bellevue Literary Press
90 Broad Street
Suite 2100
New York NY 10004
Copyright © 1995, 2008 by Bill Green
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Green, Bill, 1942—
Water, ice and stone : science and memory on the Antarctic lakes / Bill Green. 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes index.
1. Lakes—Antarctica—Victoria Land. I. Title.
GB1798.V53G74 2008 508.98’9—dc22 2008006367
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a print, online, or broadcast review.
Bellevue Literary Press would like to thank all its generous donors—individuals and foundations—for their support.
Book design and type formatting by Bernard Schleifer
Bellevue Literary Press is committed to ecological stewardship in our book production practices, working to reduce our impact on the natural environment.
Manufactured in the United States of America
paperback ISBN: 978-1-934137-08-6
ebook ISBN: 978-1-942658-85-6
3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
This book is affectionately dedicated to my wife, Wanda Green, to my daughters, Dana and Kate, and to the memory of Eugene and my parents.
I have been blessed by their company.
contents
| Acknowledgments | |
| Introduction | |
| Preface | |
| one | Ohio: West and South |
| two | Water |
| three | Rutherford’s Den |
| four | The |