POWER OF RETAINING WATER 



77 



proportion of water in the coarser and finer parts ; the portion 

 passing through the sieve will be found to contain much the 

 most water. 



An excellent illustration of the manner in which water is 

 distributed in columns of sand after thorough draining is 

 afforded by an experiment made by King (Wisconsin icth 

 Report, 176). He filled five tubes, 10 ft. long and 6 inches 

 in diameter, with sand of different degrees of fineness, prepared 

 by sifting successively through sieves having 100, 80, 60, 40 

 and 20 meshes to the inch. The columns of sand were 

 saturated with water, and then allowed to drain, protected 

 from evaporation, for 1 1 1 days ; the water in each six inches 

 of every column was then determined. The results given by 

 three of the columns are shown in Table XI. 



TABLE XI 



WEIGHT OF WATEE PER IOO OF DEY SAND AFTEE DRAINING 



in DAYS (KING) 



