30 The Coeorado Experiment Station 
rose, we find 5,730 or 3.6 times as much as in the soil as put into 
the tube, we find too, that the next five inch section of soil above 
this shows an increase from 1,578 to 1,600. In regard to the 
total nitrogen there seems to be an increase as we approach the 
upper portion of the tube, and in fact throughout the whole soil 
column. 
In the second case that we will give the conditions were dif¬ 
ferent, and had been made so to see what the distribution of these 
salts would probably be if they were being brought up to the sur¬ 
face from the ground-water which had brought them into solution. 
For this purpose we made a solution containing eight percent of 
a mixture of equal parts of calcic nitrate and sodic chlorid. 
DISTRIBUTION OF SALTS IN A 40-INCH COLUMN OF SOIL BY THE ASCENTION 
OF THEIR SOLUTION DUE TO CAPILLARITY. 
Nitrogen as Total 
Nitrates Cblorin Nitrogen 
Percent Percent Percent 
Top 5 inches . 0.0010 0.242 0.06120 
Second 5 inches . 0.0016 0.475 0.06460 
Third 5 inches . 0.0100 0.748 0.09316 
Fourth 5 inches . 0.0250 0.604 0.12308 
Fifth 5 inches . 0.0400 0.481 0.14280 
Sixth 5 inches . 0.0500 0.459 0.15504 
Seventh 5 inches . 0.0350 0.601 0.16116 
Eighth 5 inches . 0.0500 0.703 0.17408 
The nitrates did not attain a greater height than thirty inches, 
while the chlorin reached the limit, forty inches. The quantity of 
nitrate decreased with the height of the column, the chlorid varied, 
but showed a maximum in the sixth five-inch section from the 
bottom. The nitric nitrogen in the seventh and eighth five-inch 
sections from the bottom contained no more or even less than the 
soil contained when introduced into the tube. Again the question 
is evidently less simple than it might at first appear, but it seems 
very probable that the distribution of the nitric nitrogen is the same 
that w,e would find in a soil in which the nitrates had been washed 
from the surface into the ground-water by a moderate application 
of water to the surface. The section of this soil as it was taken 
from the field showed the following distribution of nitric nitrogen 
down to the depth of 60 inches: one to six inches 109.0 p. p. m.; 
seven to twelve inches 14.0 p. p. m.; thirteen to twenty-two inches 
11.o p. p. m.; twenty-three to thirty-two inches 6.0 p. p. m.; thirty- 
three to forty-two inches 2.6 p. p. m.; from this point downward 
to a depth of sixty inches the nitric nitrogen was constant at 2.0 
p. p. m. It does not seem probable that this nitric nitrogen was 
involved in an upward movement. 
