80 



From this table it will be seen that there is a remarkable dif- 

 ference- between the amounts of lime and of potash recovered 

 from the surface soil, the mean amounts! for the 8 soil types 

 being 1468 for lime and 82.38 for potash or as 18 to 1 ; while 

 in the bottom layer the mean amounts recovered w r ere 34.41 of 

 lime to 40.67 of potash, the relations being reversed. In the 

 language of the earlier chemists, the potash has forced the lime 

 into solution at the bottom and maintained it there at the top. 



There has been enough potash added to these soils to repre- 

 sent, for the entire weight, in the neighborhood of an average 

 of 26 parts per million, and of lime 7 parts; there was present 

 in them,, before this addition, enough more to make a mean to- 

 tal of 43.73 of potash and 128 of lime. But at the end of 50 

 days of capillary movement and after rendering the soils water- 

 free at 110 G., there was recovered from the top layers of soil 

 a mean of 82.38 parts per million instead of 43.73 parts and 

 from the bottom layer 40.67 parts per million, only 3 parts 

 less; while in the case: of lime the surface layer yielded an 

 average of 1468 parts per million instead of 128 parts, and the 

 bottom layer 34.41 parts. The! capillary movement had re- 

 duced the lime which could be recovered from the bottom layer 

 to about one-fourth and had increased that at the top 12-fold; 

 while with the potash the decrease had been only about 6 to 7 

 per cent, at the bottom and the increase at the top less than 

 2-fold. There is thus shown a strong difference between the 

 movement of the potash and of the lime, through these soils 

 under the influence of capillarity. 



MOVEMENT OF MAGNESIA BY CAPILLARITY. 



The movements of magnesia have been, in general, more 

 nearly analogous to those of the lime than to those of the potash, 

 but there has been no such larg'e accumulations in the surface 

 inch. The relative concentrations are shown in the next table. 



