This page has been validated.
36
Dilatancy of sand
it is a broad flat plate; it is still soft, as long as it is squeezed, but when the pressure is removed the elasticity of the bag tends to draw it back to its rounded form, changing the shape, enlarging the interstices and absorbing the excess of water. This is soon gone and the bag remains a flat cake with peculiar properties; to pressures on its
Fig. 17.
sides it yields at once, such pressures having nothing to overcome but the elasticity of the bag since change of shape in that direction diminishes the interstices. But to pressures on
