180 READE: STALAGMITES OF SAND. 
which binds the grains of the ‘stalagmite’ together for the time 
being. It is this quick drainage that produces the appearance of 
pulsation. With each drop the water suffuses the substance of the 
column and disappears in the interval before the next drop falls. 
So soon as the sand in the vessel below becomes saturated, that 
is when its capillarity is satisfied, the stalagmite gets supersaturated 
and falls to pieces. 
I fancy it is not known to many that diverse geological 
phe nomena can be imitated with sand and water, and in fact are so 
may studi u 
siliceous sand rs and now make ‘dis Sees aadicos to the information 
on the subjec 
It may appropriate here to record a kindred phenomenon I 
have lately observed on the shore at Blundellsands. The cavalry 
from the Seaforth Barracks often come out for exercise and gallop 
along the shore on or about the margin of spring-tides, leaving 
. innumerable footprints of horses’ hoofs on the sand, if damp. ‘The 
sand, blowing across these depressions, builds out the sand over the 
hollows, so that they appear as crescentic cracks in the shore, in 
some cases neatly closed up. On examination I find that the sand 
does not fill up the depression, but simply ‘corbels’ over the 
hollows, the greatest ‘corbeling ’ taking place on the windward side. 
d 
impossible had there not been such irrefragable proofs. The 
explanation appears to be that some of the sand-grains are arrested 
while blowing horizontally over the ‘ hoof’ eens and by slow 
accretion build out from the side the ‘ overhang’ or ‘ corbelling,’ 
the moisture from the surrounding sand providing the binding by 
capillarity. The greater part of the sand is doubtless blown across 
the depression without falling in. 
Observations such as these may seem trivial to some minds. On 
the contrary, they are interesting from a physical point of view, and 
valuable as often affording explanations of geological phenomena of 
a very puzzling nature. 
* * Geological Lessons among the Sand-hills,’ Science Gossip, 1881, p. 198. 
* Miniature Domes in Sand,’ oy Mag., Jan. 1884. 
‘ Eolites,’ Ibid, 1875, p. 
. chanical Cause of he Lamination of Sandstone not hitherto noticed.” 
Nature, vol. xxxvii, pp. 222, 2 
Naturalist, 
