"This manual has been prepared to enable field personnel to describe soils as they are encountered and used for engineering purposes. It is not intended to be a soil classification system. Whenever possible, terminology used should conform with that of the Unified Soil Classification System (USC). The word soil, as used in engineering, refers to all surficial materials that are found overlying bedrock. Soil may be grouped into three major divisions: coarse-grained, fine-grained, and organic. Coarse-grained soils may be described as those made up largely of particles visible to the naked eye. This group includes boulders, cobbles, gravel and sand particles. Fine-grained soils are made up of particles not visible to the naked eye. Plasticity and particle size cannot be accurately determined without the use of refined testing. For field identification, fine-grained soils may be classed as silt or clay by their behaviour in a few simple tests. The simple tests listed below may be used to establish the identity of the soils: Shaking Test ..., Shine Test ..., Dry Strength Test .... Organic soils are placed in a separate group because of their appreciable content of organic matter. Organic soils are very compressible and spongy. Purely organic soils are easily recognized by their matted or fibrous structure. Partly organic soils may behave as a silt or clay, but are very compressible and usually have a characteristic odour. The order in which a soil is described is as follows: 1. Principal Component (capital letters); 2. Unified Soil Classification (in parentheses); 3. Principal component modifiers (record in decreasing order); 4. Particle shape, size and grading; 5. Moisture; 6. Colour (Munsell colour chart for reference). ... Proper sampling is as important as the intended testing. The test pit should be excavated to the desired depth and a sidewall should be neatly trimmed to expose a fresh face. The exposed face should be examined for changes in gradation and logged accordingly. The overall borrow site, test pit, and exposed test pit wall should be photographed. ... Samples should be obtained from each different stratum in the deposit. Either individual or composite samples are obtained by excavating into the exposed face with a cut of uniform cross-section. The sample can either be readily collected while excavating or gathered on a polyethylene sheet or a suitable cloth sheet spread out at the base of the cut. The minimum cross-section dimension at the sampling location should be at least four times the dimension of the largest gravel size included in the soil. Individual small samples taken from several locations in a uniform stratum can be combined and thoroughly mixed to form a representative bulk sample of the required volume. ... Quartering and splitting are the two most frequent methods used [for reducing field samples]. ... all reduction of sample size should be done damp to prevent loss of the fines fraction. ... [This manual is divided into seven sections: 1) Sample description; 2) Sampling from a hand-excavated test pit; 3) Moisture content determination; 4) Particle size distribution analysis sieve method; 5) Particle size distribution analysis hydrometer method; 6) Liquid limit, plastic limit, plasticity index of soils; 7) Typical field forms. Numerous photocopied excerpts from the Annual Book of ASTM Standards are included. Section 1 contains ASTM [American Society for Testing and Materials] Standards: D 2487-93 Classification of Soils for Engineering Purposes (Unified Soil Classification System), p. 206-216, published Nov. 1993; D 2488-93 Practice for Description and Identification of Soils (Visual-Manual Procedure), p. 217-227, published Nov. 1993. Section 2 contains ASTM Standards: D 75-87 Practice for Sampling Aggregates, p. 650-653, published Dec. 1987 and reapproved 1992; C 702-87 Practice for Reducing Field Samples of Aggregate to Testing Size, p. 368-371, published May 1987. Section 3 contains ASTM Standard: D 2216-92 Test Method for Laboratory Determination of Water (Moisture) Content of Soil and Rock, p. 177-180, published Aug. 1992. Section 4 contains ASTM Standard: C 136-92 Test Method for Sieve Analysis of Fine and Coarse Aggregates, p. 79-82, published Jan. 1993. Section 5 contains ASTM Standard: D 422-63 Test Method for Particle-Size Analysis of Soils, p. 10-16, published Nov. 1963, reapproved 1990. Section 6 contains ASTM Standard: D 4318-93 Test Method for Liquid Limit, Plastic Limit, and Plasticity Index of Soils, p. 551-561, published Jan. 1994."] -- ASTIS (online) database.