Your gateway to a wide range of natural resources information and associated maps

Victorian Resources Online

The Surface of a Soul

Banner: Contenders for Victorian State Soil

Back to: Contenders for State Soil - Brown Dermosol


          Where giants stretch their leafy boughs
          And raindrops cascade down
          Where hidden creatures creep and crawl
          Through root and soils long brown

          Where water falls from sky and leaf
          And tumbles down the mount
          To join the streams that endless run
          For crop and town to count

          Where pastures grow and cows chew cud
          The axe rang out for pelf
          The forest fell, the grass grew green
          The hill reshaped itself

          Below the ground, the roots creep down
          Through ped and skin of clay
          To suck the moisture there entrapped
          And grow up to the day

          A cover to the earth’s raw bones
          That hides an ancient soul
          A timeless land, an earthy hand
          The great Brown Dermosol


          Austin Brown



          Photo: sg12 Soil Pit Site profile
          Brown Dermosol in the Strzelecki ranges.
Page top