THE SOILS OF ST. MARYS COUNTY 



BY 



JAY A. BONSTEEL 



Introductory. 



St. Mary's County comprises about 3G9 square miles of territory, 

 bounded on the northeast by the Patuxent Eiver, on the east by Chesa- 

 peake Bay, on the south and southwest by the Potomac Eiver, and on 

 the west by Wicomico Eiver and Budds Creek. All of these waters 

 except Budds Creek are either salt or brackish, and in the Patuxent and 

 Potomac rivers the tides rise to points far beyond the boundaries of 

 the county. On the north, for a distance of about 25 miles, the boundary 

 separating St. Mary's from Charles County is an irregular land line, 

 except along the northeastern portion, where Indian Creek forms the 

 boundary. 



The county is irregular in outline, constituting a large peninsula 

 stretching southeastward and is the most southern of the Maryland 

 counties occupying the western shore of Chesapeake Bay. 



St. Mary's County lies wholly within the Coastal Plain area of Mary- 

 land. It consists of an interior upland division, rising from 90 to 200 

 feet above sea level, and of a low-lying foreland border varying from 

 15 to 45 feet above sea level. The county is very much indented by 

 large estuaries or bays, particularly on the Potomac side. The streams 

 of any length flow into the Potomac drainage system, while only steep- 

 walled streams of short length are tributary to the Patuxent. 



As in Calvert County, the basal skeleton of St. Mary's County consists 

 of unconsolidated strata. The materials composing these strata are the 

 same as in Calvert County. In the same way the later Pleistocene de- 

 posits are far more directly concerned in the formation of soil types 

 than are the older strata, and the correlation of soil types with geological 



