Analyses of Nova Scotian Soils. — By Prof. L. C. Harlow, 

 B. Sc, B. S. A., Provincial Normal College, Truro, N. S. 



(Read 20 April 1914) 



"The soil is so complex in its relation to crops that it 

 has been and still is one of Nature's greatest puzzles." What 

 intricate actions, physical and chemical, are those which take 

 place when the rain descends upon, or the salt tide water 

 spreads over the marsh lands of our Province! Pages are 

 written upon the action between two substances in a test 

 tube; it is only natural then that much is afforded for investi- 

 gation in one of Nature's great test tubes, the Bay of Fundy, 

 where the fine residues carried by streams from the various 

 geological formations are mechanically stirred by the ceaseless 

 tide. 



An analysis of the ebb tide water at the mouth of the 

 Shubenacadie shows .622 grams of silt suspended in 

 every lOOOcc of water. Now this silt is the result of the 

 breaking down, the weathering and transportation of the 

 rocks of the Province. Of what is it composed mineralogic- 

 ally and chemically? A number of investigators as Delage, 

 Bonsteel and Ries, who have labored to determine the minerals 

 in the soil have come to the conclusion that it has all 

 the minerals unaltered which are present in the rocks. The 

 commonest are quartz, limonite, hematite, kaolin, feldspar, 

 micas, apatite, hornblendes, pyroxenes, chlorite, tourmaline, 

 rutile, calcite, dolomite, selenite, zeolites. 



Again the rocks as sandstone, shales, limestones, of one 

 group, have the same mineral constituents as the granites, 

 gneisses and schists of another group; but differ first, in the 

 varying proportion of these minerals, and secondly in that 

 the first group are water formed, the second heat formed. 



(332) 



