[78] Hall (The Soil, p. 66) gives for the minima in the case of soils examined by him the following figures: coarse sandy soil, 22.2, light loam, 35.4, stiff clay, 45.6, sandy peat, 52.8. These figures are very much higher than for apparently similar materials used by the writer, and the differences exceed those between the maxima given for the same. This discrepancy I am unable to account for. _Capillary Action in Moist Soils._—In the preceding discussion the case of columns of air-dry soils, so common in the arid regions, has been considered. It is obvious that a soil column holding the _minimum_ of capillary water may be of any height; so that when, as happens in the open field, the rain water soaks down beyond the range of capillary rise in a given soil, the upper portions of the latter, above that range, will remain at the minimum of moisture-content so long as it is not depleted by evaporation. King has made extended observations on soil columns ten feet high and moistened throughout the mass. Capillary movement takes place in moist soils much more rapidly than in dry ones, although when sufficient time is given the final adjustment will of course be the same. King’s experiments showed that evaporation at the surface of the tenfoot columns caused a sensible depletion of the water content originally existing at the depth of ten feet, in the course of 314 days. While so slow a movement might not be of any benefit during the growth-period of shallow-rooted annual crops, the fact shown is of importance to permanent plantings, as of trees and vines. Another and not so readily intelligible effect observed by King is that when the surface-soil is wetted, moisture may be withdrawn toward the surface from the lower layers. In one experiment he found that when water was applied on the surface so as to add two pounds of water to _each_ surface foot in several soils, at the end of 26 hours there had been an increase of _three_ pounds in the same, and a loss of one and three quarter pounds from the second and third feet. The cause of this translocation is probably a “distillation” of the subsoil moisture toward the cooled soil; the fact that it occurs is of practical interest, since it seems to show that wetting the upper portion of the soil by cold rain or irrigation may tend to raise additional supplies from below. At the change of seasons we not uncommonly find, in digging tree holes or wells, a wet streak at from 9 to 18 inches below the surface, caused evidently by the condensation of subsoil moisture, at the limit of a cold zone resulting from the penetration of unseasonable temperature (“cold snap”) from above. Such movements of soil-moisture by means of evaporation and recondensation within the soil can of course take place even when the minimum of liquid absorption has been reached and direct capillary movement has ceased. It is, as it were, dew within the soil.