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soil borers of Voislava and Bliznina, belong to this type. They have 

 however shown themselves to be utterly unsuitable, for the simple reason 

 that soil enters the spoon in so promiscuous a fashion as to preclude 

 any possibility of making an accurate partition of that which falls into 

 the spoon, through the slit, and from which, the sample is obtained by 

 cutting a certain thickness of the layer, the whole length of the slit. It 

 may happen, that soil particles from only the upper and lower layers of 

 the bored depth — or from only the middle impinge against the slit; in 

 short there is not, and cannot be any assurance that an equal quantity 

 of soil from all depths passed through, by the borer will get into the 

 sample, through the slit. Therefore a sample selected from the spoon 

 cannot be an average for the pierced depth; it may show a much larger 

 or a much smaller proportion of water, than the average for the whole 

 penetrated layer depending upon whether more soil, from the moist or 

 from the dry strata, gets into the slit of the spoon. Another objection to 

 the spoon — borer, is that it collects the soil in a very compact or com- 

 pressed condition; and if the ground under investigation contains a large 

 quantity of water, the compression of the soil will cause a part of that 

 water to be pressed ont of it. This water will undoubtedly take the line 

 of least resistance; which means, the slit of the spoon-borer. Therefore 

 in a sample collected from the slit may be fomed water pressed ont of 

 the whole circumference of the spoon, in consequence of which, a 

 sample may be obtained containing a lot of water from a moderately 

 moist soil. On the other hand firm ground, containing an insignificant 

 quantity of water, will give a sample with still les water in it; for the 

 friction caused by the spoon-borer in piercing firm ground, is so great, 

 that it may be heated to 60 or 70 degrees, and this entails the loss of 

 water, by evaporation in the whole circumerence of the soil, in, and 

 surrounding, the spoon on every side, and consequently heated on every side. 

 These two defects — the impossi bility of getting an average example from the 

 bored depth, on the one hand, and the probability of always getting either an in- 

 creased or a dimished quantity of water in the sample taken fromthe spoon 

 on the other hand — condemn the use of the spoon-borer in investigating the 

 humidity of the soil with anything approaching accuracy. 



Thus the idea itself the method of arriving at average quantities 

 of humidity in more or less significant layers of soil, turned out owing 

 to the adoption of imperfect soil-borers, to be infeasible. Indeed, work 

 carried out be this method has not cleared up the most essential factors 

 of the water processes in the soil. The method of getting the average 

 quantities of water in significantly thick layers of soil could not resolve 

 the main qnestions of the balance of water therein, inasmuch as it 

 could not deal with the limit line between layers having a plentiful and 



