CHEMICAL NATUEE OE SOILS 353 



There is many an humble homestead throughout the glaciated 

 areas of North America whose lack of worldly prosperity is due 

 to the dry and barren soil supplied by these deposits of modi- 

 fled drift. On the other hand, there are numerous regions, like 

 those of northern Ohio, where a light, barren, residual soil de- 

 rived from sandstone has become enriched by an admixture of 

 glacial clays from the north, and thus brought prosperity to 

 thousands of happy homes. Nature works out her own com- 

 pensations, impoverishing, it may be, here but correspondingly 

 enriching there. 



retained by 40-mesh sieve and consisting of a clean sand composed of some 

 two-thirds its bulk white quartz particles and one-third opaque, partially 

 kaolinized feldspathic particles; rarely any mica or free iron oxides. (4) 

 180 grammes retained by 60-mesh sieve and consisting, like the last, of 

 clean quartz and feldspar sand, the quartz particles in excess of the feld- 

 spar, and rarely a little mica. (5) 82 grammes retained by the 80-mesh 

 sieve. This, very clean sand of quartz and feldspar, in the proportion of 

 about three fifths quartz and two fifths feldspar, (6) 150 grammes retained 

 by a sieve of silk bolting cloth of 120 meshes to the lineal inch. Like the 

 last, composed almost wholly of bright quartzes and somewhat kaolinized 

 feldspars with scarcely a trace of other silicates. (7) 185 grammes which 

 passed the silk bolting cloth. This was submitted to washing, the lighter 

 finer material being poured off as silt. By this means were obtained 118 

 grammes very fine sand and 67 grammes silt. The fine sand, as before, 

 showed under the microscope only quartz and feldspars, the quartzes still 

 in excess. The silt to the naked eye consisted of a light brown, almost 

 impalpable material, which the microscope resolved into quartz and feldspar 

 particles with shreds of ferruginous products evidently derived from the 

 decomposition of iron-magnesian silicates, such as micas or amphiboles. 

 (8) Organic matter, 19.5 grammes. 



A bulk analysis of the air dry-soil, excluding all grass and roots, yielded 

 results as below: — 



Ignition (water and organic matter) .... 2.72% 



Silica 76.80 



Alumina and iron oxides 14.04 



Lime 0.78 



Magnesia Traces 



Potash 2.87 



Soda 1-18 



98.39% 



Such a soil is plainly little more than a highly quartzose granite or gneiss 

 in a pulverulent condition and in which the agencies of decomposition have 

 scarcely begun their work. Its composition could have been almost foretold 

 by the microscopic examination, 



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