FERTILISING PRINCIPLE, &c. 



225 



on the low lands, these are the only ones which are taken for a period 

 beyond the memory of man. Indigo is a striking instance, and the most 

 familiar one, of what is here advanced ; and it was with a view to some 

 improvement in the cultivation of this plant, that the following Analysis 

 were instituted. 



Portions of the silt, (or mud, deposited by the inundations,) were 

 procured from JBdnshanah, near Sukksdgar, and from Mohatpur, near 

 Kissinnuggur ; the analysis of each gave in two hundred parts. 







Silt from 



Silt from, 







Bdnsbariah. 



Mohatpur. 



Water, .... .... ... 





2 



2 



Saline matters, (mostly muriate of potass,) 





Oi 





Vegetable matter, destructible by heat, 



• . . .... 



4| 





Carbonate of lime, .... .... 





12^ 



161 



Phosphate of lime, .... ... 



. .... 







1 



Sulphate of lime, .... .... 













Oxyde of iron, .... .... 





12 



12 



Silex, .... .... 





156 



139 



Alumina, .... .... ... 





H 



14| 







183| 



180^ 





Loss, .... 



60i 



9| 







200 



200 



The very unlooked-for circumstance of only two and a half per cent, 

 of vegetable matter being found in these specimens, appeared almost to 

 exclude the idea that this was the fertilising principle ; or at least that it 

 could be exclusively so ; while, on the other hand, from six to eight per 

 cent, of calcareous matter appearing in them, when in an extensive series 

 of analysis of the higher soils, this was always found remarkably deficient, 

 (seldom more than 0,75 to 1 per cent.) pointed to the conclusion, that the 



3 K calcareous 



