This book (not this exact copy, as far as I know) was on my father's bookshelf for years (he got a lot of free books, I am planning to meet him in the same corner of hell reserved for people who collect too many books). I got around to reading it after he died, the author was considered an early environmental writer, his main characters are purported to be natural phenomenon rather than people. His two more famous book are "Hurricane" and "The Earth Abides".