The Fixation oe Nitrogen. 
7 
ANALYSIS 
Calcic sulfate . 
Calcic chlorid . 
Magnesic chlorid . 
Potassic chlorid . 
Sodic chlorid . 
Sodic nitrate. 
Iron and Aluminic oxid 
Silicic acid . 
LXXXIX 
Water-.Soluble 
Laboratory 
No. 1024 
Nov. 2, 1910 
Percent 
. . . 18.377 
. . . 18.740 
. .. 12.030 
. . . 1.882 
. . . 4.550 
. . . 32.997 
. . . 0.115 
. . . 0.219 
100.000 
It is no wonder to me that the soil was mealy and bairen 
and that our culture experiment showed no living azotobacter. The 
desirability of a series of nitric acid determinations as well as that 
of the total nitrogen in samples of such a soil taken at stated 
intervals is evident, but it has not been and scarcely will ever be 
feasible to prosecute this work in such detail in the field; there are 
other difficulties besides the remoteness of the locality from the 
laboratory. Had I forseen the developments that took place m 
this land in 1910 I could have arranged matters bettei. this is 
all that I wish to say about this case at the present time. I may 
say something more at a future time. 
Case No. 27 — This is a sample of earth taken from the road¬ 
side near a neighboring town. A vertical face of earth two and 
a half to three feet high left in working the road, as well as the 
Hank of the road were decidedly brown and looked moist and oil) . 
An irrigating ditch runs 'about sixty feet north of this point, the 
bottom of which is between four and six feet above it. llieie was 
no undue amount of moisture either at this point 01 on the otfui 
side of the road to indicate leakage from the ditch. The eaith is 
a red, gypsiferous and somewhat sandy clay. The sample was 
taken from the surface, but a portion of it may have been 111002 
than an inch deep. The N 2 0 5 present equalled 1.079 percent of 
the air-dried sample. 
Cases Nos. 28 and 29— In this investigation only two 
occurrences of nitrates have been, met with which must be considered 
as owing their origin to leaching from the soil. How" far the 
nitrates in these two cases may have been transported is, as a fact, 
wdiolly unknown. 
I11 the case which I have myself seen they probably came from 
the immediately surrounding country, as the line of hills about the 
place is not far aw r ay and the occurrence is clearly a surface one. 
These tw r o occurrences are shallow" wells, one ot them twenty-se\ cn 
