BULLETIN OF THE 
No. 141 
Contribution from the Bureau of Soils, Milton Whitney, Chief. 
December 17, 1914. 
THE CLYDE SERIES OF SOILS. 
By J. A. Bon steel, 
Scientist in the Soil Survey. 
INTRODUCTION. 
The surface soils of the Clyde 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 t}^pes 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 other. 
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 
