16 
Bulletin 72. 
this well, was to reduce the total solids to less than one-half the 
amount found in the easternmost well in my plot, 254 feet west of 
it. This difference held throughout the two years these wells were 
under observation. These data are not so good as would appear at 
first sight, for the plot had been under experimental cultivation for 
several years, five at least, and I have no means of judging to what 
extent, if any, the changes were due to the direct action of the drain 
upon this ground. 
§ 48. If the water in the easternmost well was part of an east¬ 
ward flow out of my plot, a large amount of the salts, 50 per cent., 
had been removed from solution in flowing from the eastern por¬ 
tion of my plot to the well, a distance of not more than 250 feet. 
The observations, however, upon the dissimilarity of the salt con¬ 
tents of the waters of the different wells justifies a serious doubt as 
to the existence of a flow through the soil, or if any, it is a slow one 
and is accompanied by an extremely slow translocation of the salts 
in the soil. It is certain that the soil has the power of retaining 
salts, but there are reasons for believing that there are marked dif¬ 
ferences in the soil in this respect, and if there were a flow, this 
property of the soil would tend to retard the translocation of the 
salts. Some facts supporting this view will be mentioned under the 
subject of drainage. 
* § 49. There is another consideration which should be men¬ 
tioned, the difference in the amount of salts in the water actually 
in contact with the soil and that in the wells may indicate that 
the true soil water coming into the wells from the sides may have 
received an admixture of water coming from below, and from which 
those salts most readily retained by the soil had been partially re¬ 
moved. If this were the case it would be strongly suggestive of a 
flow through the gravel, and as the well referred to entered the 
gravel, the water may have been a mixture of waters, some enter¬ 
ing laterally from the soil and others rising vertically from the 
under-flowing waters. Such might be the case, even when the 
height of the water in the well and that in the soil outside of the 
well were the same, or so nearly so that refined means of measure¬ 
ment would have to be used to establish the difference. 
§ 50. That the water flowing through the gravel, even if it 
were water percolating through the overlying soil, should differ in 
its content of salts from the water in the soil, is in keeping with 
the observed fact that the total solids present fell as the water 
table fell. The soil through which the water table fell not having 
reached its point of saturation for these salts, retained them until 
an equilibrium between those in solution and those present in the 
soil had been established. 
§ 51. To what extent this well A and all the others were 
