Abstract
DR. LEATHER is no doubt correct in supposing that the upward movement of water through the soil is gradual, and in his further deduction that there must, for a time, be some strata in which the water has not yet begun to move; but we do not know the velocity at which water travels upwards in the soil, and consequently one cannot say whether the time during which any particular stratum remains unaffected is to be measured in days or months. Dr. Leather's results do not give the velocity of upward movement, but the difference between the loss and the gain of water at different depths. It is no more possible to calculate the amount of, water that has passed through a particular stratum by determining the amounts present at two different times than it would-be to calculate the quantity of heat passing along a rod of unknown thermal properties by measuring the temperature change at a particular point.
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RUSSELL, E. [Letters to Editor]. Nature 79, 310 (1909). https://doi.org/10.1038/079310a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/079310a0
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