The aim of this paper is to stress the fact that soils, even though formed in place, transported, and deposited, all according to rigorous physical laws followed by nature do not behave like man-made materials such as concrete, steel, Plastics, ceramics, etc. when subject to loads, shear, and other types of deformation.
As a consequence, the analytical approaches that are adequate to design structures made of manufactured materials cannot be applied to soils. These require an altogether different approach and sometimes the formulas and equations do not give the results sought.
In view of this fact the characteristics of soils must be determined through other means. One such example is given in the form of evaluating soil properties and distinguishing Young glacial tills from adjacent formations. The statistical method, used by the writer in previous studies, proved very satisfactory. The same approach is suggested for other types of very heterogeneous soils such as different types of alluvial deposits, volcanic soils, wind-blown soils, coastal and marine deposits.
