AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
[THIRD SERIES.] 
Art. I.—On the Suspension and Sedimentation of Clays; by 
Wma. H. BREWER. : 
IN a paper read before the National Academy of Sciences in 
1883, and since published,* I have considered some of the gen- 
eral phenomena of sedimentation and given a partial account 
‘of experiments pertaining to the subject. Clays and the mate- 
rials suspended from soils and from pulverized rocks formed - 
part of the substances experimented on and discussed. 
he continuation of the experiments then in progress con- 
firms and extends the conclusions there stated, and this article 
with a succeeding one may be considered as a review and con- 
tinuation of the previous paper, so far as it specially relates to 
the transportation of mud in natural waters and the formation 
of bars and deltas. In this paper I will consider the behavior 
of clays toward water, as shown by laboratory experiments, and 
in the next, the application of the same in explanation of the 
natural phenomena. 
rosion by running water, the transportation of suspended 
mud, its deposition, the formation of bars in rivers or at their 
mouths, the growth of deltas, the distribution of silt in lakes 
and harbors aad on the floor of the ocean have mostly been 
discussed from the mechanical side only. The chemical 
aspects of the phenomena have usually either been but lightly 
considered or entirely ignored. 
* “On the Subsidence of Particles in Liquids;” Memoirs of the Nat. Acad. 
Sei,, vol. ii. 
Am. Jour. Sci.—Turp Serres, Vou. XXIX, No. 169.—Jan,, 1885. 
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