174 CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX. 



It is usual to divide soil into fertile earth, and acid earth.* The first is 

 very common, the second presents itself but rarely. It produces nothing, 

 unless it be mosses; it is in marshy places that it is ordinarily found. It 

 is in general composed in the same manner as fertile earth ; but whilst in 

 the latter the geine is united with lime, and perhaps with other bases be- 

 sides, it is in the acid earth combined with acids, which, according to 

 Einhof, are the phosphoric and acetic acids. It is for this reason that it 

 has the property of reddening vegetable blues, and that it gives, by calcina- 

 tion, ashes which contain phosphoric acid. To dry distillation, it yields a 

 great quantity of an acid liquid, containing the acetate of ammonia ; and 

 when it is distilled, after having mixed it with water, a liquid product is 

 obtained, which reddens vegetable blues, and likewise contains acetate of 

 ammonia. In opposition to Einhof, Sprengel affirms that the acid geine is 

 produced only for the want of bases, and that its acid action proceeds 

 only from the geic acid which it contains, and not from the presence of a 

 foreign acid. De Pontin has made the analysis of an acidf soil taken from 

 the plain of Eckerud, in the government of Elfsburg, in Sweden, and found 

 that the geine had there combined with the malic, acetic, and phosphoric 

 acids. The dissolving of the soluble principles of the soil in boiling water, 

 left to be deposited when the hydrate of lime was mixed therein, these acids 

 as well as geine, so that there was found afterwards in the water only 

 traces of the acetate and hydrate of lime. But when a current of carbonic 

 acid gas was made to pass through this precipitate, steeped in water, the 

 geine remained, without dissolving, in combination with the carbonate of 

 lime produced, while there was formed a solution slightly yellowish, which 

 left after evaporation a residue of calcareous salts. This residue was 

 treated by alcohol, which took up a certain quantity of acetate of lime, and 

 left a salt of lime of a gummy appearance, which was soluble in water, 

 and possessed the properties of the malate of lime. In burning the geate 

 of lime, and taking up the residue by muriatic acid, there was obtained a 

 solution which when treated by ammonia gave a small precipitate of phos- 

 phate of lime. The greater part of the acid geine was dissolved in the 

 carbonate of ammonia. Hydrate of lime was poured into the solution, 

 which precipitated the geine without leaving in solution a salt of lime. 

 But when after having washed the precipitate, it was calcined, and the 

 residue treated with muriatic acid, there was obtained a solution, which, 

 after the expulsion of the carbonic acid, gave with ammonia an abundant 

 precipitate of the phosphate of lime. These experiments confirm those 

 given by Einhof 

 An acid soil becomes fertile when there is mixed with it lime or ashes 



* It is not a little strange to say it is " usual [dans I'usage'i to divide soils into fertile 

 earth and acid earth," when the acid nature of any has been treated by Berzelius as a 

 new discovery, and of which the truth is not admitted by all of those who had taken 

 the subject into consideration. If this division had indeed been usual, there would 

 have been no want of numerous authorities (whatever might be their value) for the 

 acidity of soil.— Translator. 



t In the French version, this word was " aride" and also in the two other places 

 where it is used below soon after. But though the context made it almost certain that 

 this was an error of the press, and that the word should have been acide, I did not 

 venture to make the alteration in a preceding edition, but merely stated in a note, the 

 doubt, and probable grounds of error. Very lately, (1842,) I saw for the first time the 

 German work by Berzelius, in the library of Professor J. C. Booth of Philadelphia, and 

 by aid of his knowledge of the language, I was enabled to make sure that the error was 

 as I had supposed. Though the book lately examined was the second edition, the ex- 

 tract was translated (through the French) from Berzelius' first edition, and there is no 

 difference in the above parasrraph, except that in the latter he has added the term " un- 

 fruitful" to <'acid soil," [unfruchtbare saure Bammerde.]— Translator. 



