Product Description

From the Hardback Edition: "Part natural history, part record of self discovery, suffused throughout with a sense of the hidden, inexhaustible beauty of the world, Bill Green's Water, Ice and Stone marks the debut of a new voice in the tradition of lyrical science writing from Barry Lopez, Diane Ackerman, Loren Eisley, and Annie Dillard."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1025898 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 300 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Each of the Antarctic lakes studied by geochemist Green is devoid of all but microscopic life. Nonetheless, in this "minimalist's tableau," he finds a surprising wealth of scientific insight. The same can be said of this wonderful book. Ostensibly an account of a season in the field in Antarctica, it delivers so much more by exploring the nature of science in addition to portraying the rigors of research on the frozen continent. In evocative language, Green successfully moves between arresting natural history and sophisticated but accessible philosophy of science. Particularly satisfying is the discussion of how the author, his students and his colleagues came by their fascination with, and began their search for an understanding of, the natural world. 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.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Green, a physical and geochemist, has a research interest in limnology. As the title implies, his book includes a healthy dose of science, e.g., the physics of the structure of the water molecule in all states; day-to-day methods for scientific data collection; and reminiscences of Green's life with attempts to convey awe and appreciation of the beauty of the Antarctic. The most interesting is the process of the research project itself, but the jumps in text from Antarctica to Hawaii to Ohio, past and present, are distracting. Also, there is no index to go to a particular lake's study, no bibliography to identify his numerous quotations, no map to see where he was. Campbell's Crystal Desert: Summers in Antarctica (LJ 11/1/92), also written by a scientist on the Antarctic, had better cohesiveness and flow. For extensive collections on the Antarctic or natural history.?Jean E. Crampon, Hancock Biology & Oceanography Lib., Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Geochemist Green's account of his Antarctic experiences are neither dry nor detached. No scientific persona whatsoever. Green is poetic and passionate. He is a scientist blessed with the vision and soul of an artist, and writes about Antarctica with the same wonder and transcendence Elizabeth Arthur achieved in her monumental novel, Antarctic Navigation. As Green describes his investigation of Antarctica's mysterious ice-covered lakes, he waxes metaphoric about the hidden energy of the universe. "Matter sings," he writes, and his descriptions of water in all its forms fill us with delight and amazement. Green is able to combine the personal with the professional, sharing poignant reminiscences while explaining, for instance, how water systems regenerate themselves. For Green, Antarctica is a place of cosmic beauty and invigorating clarity. As he expounds upon the dynamics of the icy continent's glaciers and lakes and chronicles his demanding field experiments, Green affirms the fact that science, like art, is rooted in pure imagination. Donna Seaman

Customer Reviews

Science, poetry and personal experience in a unique weave
As a classicist and poet, I am shy - if not wary - of "hard science". I stumbled upon this book by accident, browsing the non-fiction shelves in the public library. It is unique! I have ordered it - and I'm not even quite finished with it - I am reluctant to finish this first reading, although it is five-star enjoyment. Water Ice and Stone is a "braided river" (read it and you'll see why the phrase is in quotation marks) of a) Green's personal passion for his field and his subject that took him to the Antarctic lakes again and again; b) scientific explanations of that field that are accessible and fascinating without being either patronizing or unscholarly; c)the personal reminiscences and experiences that led to his choice of profession and to the Anarctic; d) the daily observations, colleagues and acts of living while he was there; and e) the beauty and wonder and astonishment and inspiration that this world we live in has to offer any of us who will take the time to look, to understand, to see. The book is science and it is poetry; it is wonder and it is analysis; it is a marvel. My highest acolade for books in fields that I did NOT take up is: it makes me almost wish I had become a.... Water, Ice and Stone left me an almost-geochemist.

The terrible beauty of the void
I live just a few miles from Oxford, Ohio and Miami University, where Dr. Green does his work when he's not away from civilization, and have sailed or swam many times at Acton Lake, which he uses in an early chapter to introduce the science of limnology, or the study of lakes.

This is a complex and ambitious book, and the result is thoroughly engrossing. It is an introduction to lake science, an adventure tale, and an account of how a scientist plans and executes his work, but these are just at the surface. It is also a personal exploration of the author's own memories and motives. Ultimately, it is a book about what moves mankind to keep learning and exploring, presented using the author as his own example.

Wondering about the powerful emotional draw that Antarctica exerts on him, the author is reminded of his boyhood, when Great Lakes winter storms would transform his town's landscape with a featureless cover of snow, allowing him to explore what became, in his imagination, an unexplored land. He describes the beauty that can be found, if one will allow himself, in the terrifying nothingness of the universe, whether it be seen in the vast coldness of space or the inhuman bleakness of an ice-covered continent. Some of his colleagues found Antactica intolerable, probably for the same reasons. He writes...

"The ice seemed a reminder of the universe at large, of the universe as accident, as matter blown and strewn and expanding, 'heartless' as Melville had described it, all moon-filled and dry, hung with poisoned worlds, incinerating stars, vacuums of frozen light. Loneliness, the warm sun as memory, as myth, the blankness of white landscape, in which we see no trace of ourselves, no artifact of our genius and cunning...". Reading this, I was taken back to my own boyhood to find my love of exploration awakened as I stood studying the cold and vastly distant stars from by back yard, and felt the fearful thrill of being sucked upward into the eternal void...

Comments on "Water, Ice & Stone"
This is a truly remarkable book. Green captures the excitement of scientific research in a beautiful, remote and challenging environment, in a way that is accessible to both scientists and non-scientists. He weaves together the scientific story with his own personal and family narrative. He has the mind of a scientist and the heart of a poet. The writing ranks with that of Loren Eiseley, Barry Lopez, and Terry Tempest Williams.

Some technical material (periodic table, geologic time line) is included at the back, but (as a scientist) I would like to have seen a more substantial technical appendix, with chemical equations, Eh-pH stability diagrams, some profiles of metal concentrations in the Antarctic lakes, and selected references to the scientific literature (especially the author's own papers).

I hope we see more books soon from this brilliant author.