Word: soiling
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...first, when we were told of these treeless lands, I imagined that it was a country ravaged by fire, where the soil was so poor that it could produce nothing. But we have certainly observed the contrary; and no better soil can be found, either for corn, or for vines, or for any fruit whatever...
...Jolliet wrote these prophetic words, after a 1673 voyage on the Illinois and Mississippi rivers, the great tallgrass prairie of central North America covered a quarter of a billion acres, a shimmering sea of grass stretching from what is now Indiana to Kansas, from Canada into Texas. But the soil was indeed ideal for corn, and in the three centuries since, that cultivated cousin of the tallgrasses has thrived. Only a few patches of the original tallgrass prairie are left, many of them scattered across the country in such small plots as old cemeteries and railroad rights-of-way. Seventeen...
Oblivious to the thunderheads that gather above her, Roberta Blackgoat, 69, an elder of the Navajo tribe, stoops with a stick to scratch a rectangle in the northern Arizona desert. Beneath this sandy soil her ancestors for five generations have buried the umbilical cords of their newborn, a ritual affirmation of their link to this harsh and haunting land. Today, however, a land dispute with a neighboring tribe threatens to uproot Blackgoat and more than 10,000 other Navajo in a U.S. Government eviction unrivaled since the internment of 110,000 Japanese Americans during World...
...pump an insulating layer of liquid-nitrogen refrigerant into a tunnel just beneath the reactor. The crippled unit will then be encased within a concrete barrier that will descend 96 ft. into the ground. Engineers were also spreading a plastic film over some 300,000 sq. yds. of soil a day to prevent further contamination and hold tainted earth in place...
...trouble with my public relations," he said ruefully, eating his breakfast egg as another chapter unfolded last week in his political drama. Did he violate the law with his new lobbying firm, booking megabucks in business within months of leaving the White House? Did he step beyond propriety and soil the presidency? "No, no, no," he declared, and added a few more...