58 
The practice of incorporating marl or clay with light and blowing sands 
(such as those at Langwarrin and Carrum) has been in vogue for many years 
in England and elsewhere. Marling, as it is termed, improves the mechanical 
condition and practically creates a new soil. Economic transport to the land 
requiring it, and facilities for cheaply working, are the main factors which 
operate to determine the utility of such deposits. 
The presence of a small amount of phosphoric acid should add to its 
efficiency as a marl. Millions of tons of a greensand marl from New Jersey, 
similar to the marls surrounding the nodules at Mornington, have been used 
as a natural fertilizer. In Table II. the analysis of marl from Maryland, 
where it is also used, is fairly representative of the New Jersey marl. 
“ This marl,” says Hopkins 1 “ contains less than 1 per cent. (18 lbs. per 
ton) of acid soluble potassium, and but little more calcium and magnesium 
than could be combined in the phosphates present. Evidently, the fertilizing 
value is due very largely to its phosphorous content, which amounts to 28‘6 
lbs. per ton.” 
The Mornington marl should have at least some value as a “ filler.” A 
small percentage of phosphoric acid in material for this purpose should be 
preferable to a sand with none. 
Much of the clay from similar deposits in the eastern States of America is 
used as a bole or fireclay. Their utility in this direction has not been tested, 
but such clays should exist at Mornington. 
II. The well-known Florida, South Carolina, Russian, and several other 
phosphates, are either obtained directly or indirectly from nodules or from 
a few inches of substratum immediately below the nodules. The age of these 
deposits is Eocene, Oligocene, and Miocene, and they are similar to the deposits 
at Mornington, Muddy Creek, Waurn Ponds, Altona Bay, and other places in 
Victoria. 
Few, if any, of the nodules at these Victorian localities have been tested 
for phosphoric acid, and it is possible that valuable deposits of phosphatic 
marls have been passed over simply because the material obtained for analysis 
has been taken too far below the nodule beds. 
The subjoined table of analyses made at the Geological Survey Laboratory 
of nodules from Mornington show^s them to be poor in phosphoric acid : — 
Table III. 
— 
I. 
II. 
III. 
IV. 
V. 
Phos. Acid 
Lime 
Magnesia 
0-29 
42-40 
Small amt. 
1-25 
41-40 
Small amt. 
1 66 
40-57 
Trace. 
0-46 
36-66 
Large amt. 
v 0-13 
2660 
Trace 
Specific gravity ... 
n.d. 
n. d. 
2604 
l -390 
n.d. 
I. Portion of a septarian nodule. II. Nodules from hurricane beach. III. Loose 
septarian nodules from shore. IV. Septarian nodule. V. Portion of a septarian 
nodule. 
Localities :—I., II., III., and V., Balcombe Bay ; IV., Grice’s Creek. 
It should be noted, however, that the nodular layers in Florida and else¬ 
where, giving from 1 to 5 per cent., are frequently associated with layers giving 
the higher percentages, and that even in the best nodular bed the percentage 
'of phosphoric acid varies within wide limits. 
1 Cyril G. Hopkins. Soil Fertility and Permanent Agriculture, U.S.A., p. 241. 
