32 
Colorado Experiment Station 
it is largely magnesic sulfate; in one I received from New Mexico it 
was wholly magnesic sulfate, but the rule is that these salts are mixed. 
In three of the instances that I have cited the water plane was 
high, in the fourth it was not high. In all of the cases the crops were 
good, both in quantity and quality. In the case of my own sugar beets, 
the best crop I gathered from the very strongly alkalied ground was 19 
tons of beets to the acre with 18 percent, of sugar, an unusually good 
crop. l 
I have explained so fully the primary origin of our alkalis that no 
reader ought to be surprised at the presence of some sodic carbonate 
in almost every sample of alkali and also of the ground-water. The 
same is true of sodic chlorid. The sodic carbonate is “black alkali”, 
it is true, but the presence of a little sodic carbonate does not change 
“white” into “black" alkali. While it is true that we may be mistaken 
about the carbonate present being sodic carbonate, I do not believe that 
we are, and think, that the carbonate in solution is really sodic car¬ 
bonate. The presence of soluble carbonates probably indicates that the 
process of alkali formation is now going on just as it has been ever 
since there have been rocks and moisture to act upon them. So the 
almost universal presence of more or less sodic carbonate in “white 
alkali” should not cause any surprise, for it is perfectly natural that 
some of it should be present, but it is highly injurious if too much of 
it be present. Under the conditions that we find in most parts of this 
state there is no danger of its accummulating, for it will be changed 
more or less quickly into the sulfate by the abundance of calcic sulfate 
in our soils, or it will pass into the drainage of the country, where there 
is any drainage. There is no doubt but that this “white alkali” is being 
formed in all parts of the State. There may be one considerable ex¬ 
ception to this statement and reservation should be made on this ac¬ 
count. 
ALKALIS CONSTANTLY BEING FORMED 
While some of our alkalis may be comparatively old, geologically 
speaking, others of them, exactly the same salts, occurring very abund¬ 
antly too, may be comparatively young. It is, further, by no means 
necessary that, in dealing with two different samples of alkali, exactly 
the same in character, we are dealing with products from the same 
immediate source. Mr. Geo. Eldridge called attention to the fact some 
30 years ago that the Cretaceous shales in this section of Colorado, par¬ 
ticularly about Boulder, seem to be heavily impregnated with alkali. 
Sixteen years ago the following statements were published in Bulletin 
No. 65 of this station: “The alkalis are not so easily traced. The expla¬ 
nation offered for the presence of alkalis in the soils of arid regions is as 
true here as elsewhere, but these general facts are not applicable in the ex¬ 
planation of the particular cases with which we meet in agriculture. It is 
