A quantitative relation between soil and the soil solution brought out by freezing-point determinations

An examination has been made of some of the extensive experimental data obtained by Bouyoucos and his associates on the freezing-point depression of soil solution at varying moisture contents, examined in situ. These workers find that the soil solution in quartz sand and extreme types of sandy soil obeys approximately the same law as dilute solutions—the freezing-point depression varying as the concentration, or in the present case, inversely as the moisture content. In other words MnDn=K3 where K is a constant, and Dn is the freezing-point depression, at a moisture content of Mn. Soils do not obey this law, the freezing-point depression rapidly increasing as the moisture content decreases.