BULLETIN OF THE 



Contribution from the Bureau of Soils, Milton Whitney, Chief. 

 December 17, 1914. 



THE CLYDE SERIES OF SOILS. 



By J. A. Bonsteel, 



Scientist in the Soil Survey. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The surface soils of the Ctyde series are dark gray, dark brown, 

 or black in color. The subsoils are gray or sometimes yellowish in 

 color and mottled with yellow and gray, but not with red, in practi- 

 cally all cases. The surface of nearly all members of the series 

 is level, with only slightly rolling or ridged areas where some of 

 the types rise above the general level of the surrounding country. 

 In nearly all of the more extensive areas of their occurrence, and in 

 all of the smaller tracts, the surface of the different soils of the 

 Clyde series is depressed below that of surrounding soils of other 

 series. The soils of the Clyde series have been formed either by 

 direct deposition as sediments in old glacial lakes, which have since 

 been drained by natural processes, or they have resulted from the 

 accumulation of more or less mineral matter and a large amount of 

 partially decayed organic matter in small lakes, ponds, and swampy 

 depressions occurring within the glaciated region of the north- 

 eastern and north-central States. In the majority of instances the 

 larger areas of the soils of the Clyde series occur within more or 

 less well-drained basins of old glacial lakes. 



The soils of the Clyde series grade into deposits of muck and peat 

 on the one hand and into the more completely drained soils of other 

 series of the glacial lake and river terrace province, or of the glacial 

 and loessial province, on the othe*r. 



Note. — This bulletin discusses the origin, characteristics, and uses of the Clyde series 

 of soils ; it is suitable for distribution in New York, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and 

 Wisconsin. 



55812°— Bull. 141—14 1 



