0a

 

FIRST ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE

GEOLOGICAL AND AGRICULTURAL
SURVEY OF TEXAS

-BY-

S. B. BUCKLEY, A, AL , PH. D., STATE GEOLOGIST. Corresponding member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Pheladelphia;of the Lyceum of Natural History of New York; of the Buffalo, Natural History Society; of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Chicago; of the New Orleans Academy of Sciences; of the Cincinnati Entomological Society, etc.

HOUSTON
:
A. C. GRAY, STATE PRINTER.
1874.
1089007

 

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FIRST ANNUAL REPORT
-OF THE-
STATE GEOLOGIST,

To His Excellency Richard Coke,

Governor of Texas

The following report of the geological and agricultural survey of the State is respectfully submitted to your consideration. Here permit me to tender you my sincere thanks for the aid and encouragement you have given me in the prosecution of the work.

I have the honor to be, with great respect,

Your obedient servant.

S. B. BUCKLEY, State Geologist.

PREFACE.

Before my arrival at Austin this fall from the field work of the survey, I supposed this report would not be wanted until the meeting of the Legislature in January; but on the contrary, it has to be rutted before that time. The time for writing the report being so short--little more than four weeks--I determined to condense as much as possible, by merely grouping together the most useful information and leave the details for a future time.

I have studied to make it useful for the people, and hence avoided scientific terms as much as possible. I have endeavored to describe things as they really are, and I certainly represent them just as I think them to be. At my request, Prof. Burleson, my First Assistant, has prepared a

 

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report of things as he saw them. This report: I did not receive until mine was nearly done, and I did not read it until after mine was finished. I had intended to give a short account of each county, but such accounts would have much of sameness. The accounts of the geology, and of the soils of the different geological periods, give the main features of the country passed over by the survey this season, including also what I had seen previously when connected with the survey.

IMPORTANCE OF THE SURVEY.

To many it may seem unnecessary to say anything on the utility of a geological and agricultural survey, because such surveys have already been tested and found to be of great practical value by most civilized countries. Indeed it is impossible to develop the mineral and agricultural resources of a State in an economical manner without such a survey. Hence the capitalist and the emigrant consider a geological and agricultural report, made by the authority of a State, the most reliable as regards its mineral and agricultural wealth. The capitalist wants to know about the coal, iron, copper, and other mineral wealth of the State; also, its soil and agricultural capacity, that he may know best where to build railroads and start manufactories; and the emigrant also wants to know about these things, that lie may decide best where to locate with regard to his particular vocation. The Geological Department has many letters from representative men of those classes asking for information, and for geological and agricultural reports of the State. Only let Texas be known abroad as she really is, and there will be enough of immigration.

More than enough time and money has already been spent in Texas in searching and digging after minerals, where it is useless to look after them, than would be sufficient to defray the expenses of its geological survey. One of the most useful parts of a survey is the directing where to look and where not to look after minerals, and thus preventing useless expenditure. There are few counties in the State which have not had their mineral hunters--gold, silver and lead being the things most sought. In 1867 an expedition of about one hundred men started from Georgetown, in Williamson county, to take possession of large deposits of gold, which were said to be on the Pecos, near

 

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the route from Fredericksburg to El Paso. Gold in large lumps amid in the greatest abundance was reported by two men to be there. They had seen it, and knew it to be so. The party spent the summer, a large portion going through to El Paso, where they disbanded; some returning in squads, others going into Mexico. Nothing of value was found, nor did any of the party understand mineralogy or geology; hence, iron pyrites, sulphuret of copper, and yellow mica were mistaken for gold, and silver mica, etc., for silver, specimens of these being brought back by some, and sent to me for examination.

When at Jefferson, last summer, I read in a newspaper of rich silver mines having just been found at the Gordon Mountain, in Montague county; a large vein of silver was said to extend over and through. the mountain. I met young man who said he belonged to a party of twelve, who were going to start next week to get silver in Montague county. From Northern Texas many went to the Cordon Mountain after silver.

To see about this, we went there last September, but before getting to the spot, we were convinced there was no silver there, because the formation was the lower cretaceous abounding in fossils, being a sedimentary deposit formed gradually in the sea, and barren of silver; but on we went, and encamped at the foot of the mountain. In its side, high up, men had dug several days, mistaking probably a thin seam containing small crystals of selenite, a form of gypsum, for a vein of silver. We could see nothing else resembling silver, excepting a few grains of sand.

Instances of a similar nature could be multiplied into many pages. None of the mining companies in the rich mining States amok; the Rocky Mountains, venture to begin work before suitable geological examinations have been made. Hence mining, as it is now generally conducted on scientific principles, is much more reliable than it was a few years ago. This result lids been brought about by the enormous sums which have been spent by individuals and companies in fruitless mining operations.

The survey, if properly conducted, will make known the agricultural capacity and adaptation of the soil for particular crops, amid disseminate information as to the best modes of cultivating the different grains, gasses, cotton, sugar, tobacco, fruits, etc., for Texas is so extensive that

 

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she has a climate and soil suited to a more varied agriculture than any other State east of the Rocky Mountains. Within the last thirty years, the great progress and general. diffusion of agricultural chemistry in Great Britain, and also, in the older States of this country, has more than doubled the amount per acre of their agricultural productions, and more than tripled the value of their lands. We were often told this summer that such and such lands in Texas had borne annual crops for twenty years, or more, without any diminution of their yield. The truth is, land can bear annual crops, and the last crop be better than the first. It is so with many of the lands of Europe, and of the older States of this country. This has been accomplished by giving the soil more plant food than has been taken from it by the growing plants.

I believe the most speedy and economical way of protecting the frontier, is to make known its mineral wealth and agricultural capacity; then the tide of emigration westward will he such as to stop the incursions of the Indians.

HISTORY OF THE SURVEY.

In 1849, there was published at Bonn, in Germany, "Texas, with Observations on its Natural History and Geology," accompanied with a topographical and geological map of the country, by Ferdinand Roemer, and in 1852, by the same author, was published a notice of the cretaceous rocks of Texas, with descriptions of new species, illustrated with plates. This last work is almost indispensable to the student of Texas geology. Both of these works are in German.

The report of Capt. R. B. Marry, on the exploration of the Red River, of Louisiana, was published at Washington, in 1853. In this work are notices of the coal. fields of Fort Belknap, the gypsum on the upper Red River; also, specimens of copper are reported to have been found in that region.

The "Geology of North America," by Prof. Jules Marcou, was published in 1858. In this work a chapter is given to the geology of the country between Preston, on the Red River, and El Paso, on the Rio Grande. Here again the coal field of Fort Belknap is mentioned, also the gypsum and salt of north-western Texas, but no allusion to the copper is made.

 

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Marcou's observations were founded on specimens given him by Capt. John Pope, of the United States army, collected by his expedition through that region, which was not visited by Marcou.

The geological map of Marcou is far from giving a correct delineation of the geological periods of Texas.

The report of the Mexican boundary survey, embracing reports of the natural history of the region traversed by the surveying party, was published at Washington, in 1859, in two large volumes, with numerous illustrations. The first volume contains a notice of the country along the Rio Grande, and descriptions of the fossils collected, with geological notes by the well known paleontologists, Messrs. Conrad & Hall. Neither of these gentlemen were ever in that region, hence their report is based on notes and specimens submitted to them.

A few years previous to this period, the importance of having a geological survey of Texas was urged by some of the newspapers of the State, among the foremost of which. was the Houston Telegraph, edited by Dr. Francis Moore, who had, in the meantime, published several articles on the geology of the State, in the Texas Almanac.

The Legislature of 1858 passed a law authorizing a geological and agricultural survey of the State, to be made by a State Geologist, an Assistant State Geologist, and a chemist. The salary of the first was three thousand dollars a year, and of the two last, each fifteen hundred dollars. Dr. B. F. Shumard was appointed State Geologist, and be appointed his brother, Dr. Geo. B. Shumard, his first assistant Dr. Riddell, chemist, all of whom are said to have been installed in office in November, 1858.

First, the State Geologist went to New York and bought apparatus for an outfit, also chemicals.

In 1859, the counties of Caldwell, Comal, Hays, McLen-nan and Rusk were, examined, the work being mostly done by the assistants, the chemist being also in the field.

The State Geologist made a partial reconnoisance of southern and eastern Texas. Late in the autumn a hasty trip to Fort Belknap was made by all the party. Then the State Geologist made his first and only report to the Leg- islature in an octavo pamphlet of seventeen pages. It merely alludes to the counties examined, and gives a short account of the coal field at Fort Belknap. No copy of this is in the State Library. Few persons in Texas knew

 

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that Dr. Shumard made any report. Not having seen it, I only give its contents from hearsay.

About six months of Dr. Shumard's first year in the Texas survey was given by him to a description of the fossils of the Missouri and Oregon surveys, he having been an assistant in the Missouri State survey at the time he received the appointment of State Geologist of Texas. The draftsman, A. R. Roesler, whom he had employed for the Texas survey at $75 00 per month, made drawings of these Missouri fossils, for which purpose he was kept at Austin a large portion of 1859.

In January, 1860, I was also employed as an assistant by Dr. Shumard, I having charge of the botanical department, also making geological observations.

In May, 1860, Drs. Shumard. Riddell and myself went, via San Antonio, to Corpus Christi, returning by way of Goliad and Lockhart to Austin. About the first of June we started for the survey of Navarro county, which was finished about the first of July; then we removed, spending the month of July in the survey of Washington county. The month of August was employed in the examination of Bastrop county. Thence returning to Austin, we went into San Saba, remaining there until November.

Dr. George G. Shumard spent the summer in northern Texas, in Grayson, Lamar, Fannin, and other counties on the Red River. He returned to Austin in September.

During the summer, Dr. B. F. Shumard had been a large ,portion of the time at Austin, leaving Dr. Riddell and myself in the field. At Austin he was closely watched by Gov. Houston, who, being convinced that Dr. Shumard was not a suitable person for a State Geologist, removed him about the first of November, 1860. and appointed Dr. Francis Moore, of Houston, State Geologist.

On our return from San Saba, in November, I was appointed First Assistant State Geologist by Dr. Moore, and Dr. Riddell retained as chemist, he being left in the lab- oratory at Austin during Dr. Moore's term of office.

Early in December, 1860, Dr. Moore and myself went southward, through Washington, Fayette, Wharton and Fort Bend counties, to the coast near Brazoria.

Returning in January, we found Dr. Shumard still at Austin, occupying his former room at the Geological Department. Dr. M. thought it rather strange that Shumard had not vacated the office. In excuse, Dr. S. assured Dr.

 

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M. that he would do nothing which would injure the interests of Dr. Moore, and that he only wished to arrange his business and start for the North. Thus assured, we started for Llano county, but on our route Dr. M. thinking that all might not go right at Austin, where the Convention of 1861 was then in session, requested me to return and arrange specimens, and match Dr. Shumard, with whom I was then on very friendly terms. Soon after my arrival at Austin, a friend informed me that Dr. Shumard was busily enraged in persuading the members of the Convention to displace Dr. Moore, and reinstate him in office again, and that, too, with every prospect of success. To thwart this, I drew up some charges against Dr. Shumard, and placed them in the hands of Gov. Houston, who showed than to some of the leading; members of the Convention, and nothing farther was done in favor of Dr. S., who, soon after, left for St. Louis, vowing vengeance, saying that he would break down my scientific reputation. Hence he wrote the letter which has been published, and used by many against me. There is not one word of truth in said letter as regards me. I studied geology and mineralogy at the Wesleyan University of Middletown, Conn., where I was noted for proficiency in these sciences, as is well known to Dr. Will. Halsey, late President of Sonic University, at Chappell Hill, in this State, who was my classmate, and who now lives at Harrisburg, near Houston; also, to Dr. John W . Foster, late President of the American Association of Science, and President of the Academy of Sciences, at Chicago, who was my fellow student; also, Prof. Richard Burleson, of the Waco University, who remembers distinctly Dr. Shumard's speaking in the highest terms of lily scientific ability, when we were in the survey of Washington county in 1860; also, from a letter of Shumard's now in my possession, written in 1860, in which he calls mean "able naturalist."

I would not allude to these things had not the Shumard letter been republished In part by sonic of the Texas papers this summer, while I was engaged in the field work of the survey; hence, I consider it a duty which I owe to the people of the State, to my family and myself, to prove its falseness.

As regards the criticisms of Dr. Asa (Tray of my botanical publications in the proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, I admit I made errors in

 

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describing some species which had already been described,. anal he and other botanical authors have often done the same. I certainly did not commit as great a blunder as he, when lie referred specimens of my genus Hoopesia to three different species and two different genera. See Appendix. The charges against Shumard were that he had devoted a large portion of his time, and also the time of a draftsman, in the description and delineation of the fossils of the Missouri survey; also of the Oregon survey, and while thus engaged in foreign work, they received pay from Texas.

Also, that he lead exceeded the appropriation for the survey, he having, in two years, expended: $28,000, when $28,000 only were appropriated.

He also complained that tune had not been allowed him to prepare a report, when his own note-books showed that more than half of his time had been spent at Austin.

He also proposed to sell to other parties Texas minerals and fossils-things which belonged to the State-not to him.

Moreover, Dr. Shumard did not manage rightly. He was in office two years, with ample means for all the departments of the survey, yet he did little or nothing to develop the mineral resources of the State, or improve its agriculture. Impressed with the notion that all tertiary coals were of little use, he paid no attention to them. His chief end and aim was to discover and describe new species of fossils. To this end he gave most of his energies, unmindful of the fact that these thins are only of secondary importance to the people of the State. He had not the advantages of a classical education, was a poor mineralogist, and had little knowledge of the other departments of natural history. During his two year's of office not a soil was analyzed, and but very few minerals. Nor has the State any of the maps or drawings of the draftsman for the same period.

Dr. Moore and myself started early in March, 1861, on a tour through Western Texas, going through Llano, Burnet and Lampasas counties; we went north through Hamilton, Bosque, Hood and Parker, to Fort Belknap, in Young county, continuing onward and northward through Archer into Clay county as far as a few miles beyond the Little Wichita; returning southward through Stephens, Callalhan, Coleman, McCulloch and Mason, thence westward to

 

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old Fort San Saba, in Menard county, and back by way of Fredericksburg, arriving at Austin about the middle of June, and found that the survey had been suspended by the Legislature on the 18th of the preceding April.

Dr. Moore had much energy, was a pretty good mineralogist, and he did more to make known the resources of the State during his short time of office than was done by Shumard in two years. The result, in part, of Dr. Moore's labors in the survey are embodied in the report of the writer, published by the Legislature of 1866. Dr. M. went North in July, 1861, and in 1864, while in the employ of a Lake Superior mining company in the northern part of Michigan, he died. His remains were brought to New York and buried in Greenwood Cemetery. Dr. M. was an old citizen of Texas, and devoted the best energies of a long life to the advancement and improvement of his adopted State.

The result of the labors of Dr. Riddell in the laboratory, during the term of office of Dr. Moore, I have not seen. Mr. Roesler was also continued as draftsman by Dr. Moore, but none of his drawings of maps or scenes are now in the Geological Department.

Early in January of 1866 I arrived in Austin, for the purpose of renewing the geological survey, found the specimens of the State collection in heaps, covered with dust, their labels displaced, and the most beautiful ones missing. The geological rooms during the war had been used for the purpose of manufacturing percussion caps. With much hard work I succeeded in getting the specimens into their natural groups and geological periods. This accomplished, I wrote a preliminary report of what had been done, in the survey, which was published by Order of the Legislature of 1866, as before stated.

At the adjournment of the Legislature of 1866, in November, I was appointed by Gov. Throckmorton to take charge of the survey and rearrange the specimens in the Capitol. In March, 1867, I went, at the suggestion of Gov. Throckmorton, with Dr. Gideon Lincecum, to Milan. Bell and other counties. W e examined the coal in the eastern part of Milam county. Owing to wet weather the roads were such that I left Dr. Lincecum, with his hack, on the west side of the Brazos, and went on foot through Robertson, Leon, Limestone and Falls county, where, at the falls of the Brazos, I rejoined the party of Dr. Lincecum.

 

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Thence we passed southward through Bell comity, and back to Austin about the middle of May. Soon after I went through a portion of Burnet and Llano counties. At the request of Gov. Throckmorton, I prepared a report of what I had done under his administration. This was left in the hands of the reconstructionists and never published. Its most important matter is in the present report. Under military rule the survey was suspended.

In 1870 a notice of Texas geology, by A. H. Roesler, appeared in some of the Texas newspapers, copied from. ail European journal, where it had first been published. On reading this, I found that a large portion of it had been taken almost verbatim from my report of 1866. I published a notice of said article, stating that it was a very remarkable confirmation of tile accuracy of my report, the measurements of the section of Comanche Peak and of the iron hill of Llano county being exactly alike in every figure; also the fossils at Comanche Peak were the same, without any addition or dimunition. This Might lead some to think that one or the other of the publications was a plagiarism.

Roesler replied, admitting the similarity of the two publications, also stating that instead of his having used my report, that he had never read it, and further, that his publication had been made in the Vienna Journal at Austria, in Europe, in 1859. Here we joined issue. I immediately wrote to Pro,. Cope, Corresponding Secretary of the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia, requesting him to examine the volumes of the Vienna Journal in their library and ascertain the date of Roesler's publication. He did so, and found it to be either 1868 or 1869, (I have forgotten which), instead of 1859. This placed Roesler in a very unpleasant and dishonorable position.

It is due to the intelligence of the people of Texas to state that Mr. Roesler has never been employed by the State authorities as a geologist, nor has he ever added any thing of importance to the geological knowledge of the State. While employed as draftsman of the survey, he was never supposed to understand geology in the least, nor was he ever requested to make independent geological examinations. Knowing hat this Roesler has caused the Shumard letter to be republished, let me state that, when he did it, he knew said letter to be false, as I can prove frogs a letter of his (Roesler's) to me when he was in the

 

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General Land Office at Washington. In this letter lie states that my reply to the Shumard letter is a complete vindication of ms scientific reputation. I had replied to the Shumard letter in the State Gazette at Austin, in 1867. This is what Roesler alluded to.

In March, 1874, Col. J. T. Brady, of Houston, informed. Governor Coke and myself that, when he was in Washington, in December 1867, he saw in the possession of Roesler a large number of maps of Texas counties, also, drawings of scenes in 'Texas, which were made when Roesler was employed as draftsman for the State geological survey. Col. Brady inquired if these things did not belong to Texas, and Roesler replied that he kept them because the State of Texas had not paid him for his services, but the books in the State Department show that Roesler has been paid in full. By request of Gov. Coke I wrote to Roesler, demanding these things, and received from Roesler a contemptuous reply, nothing more.

In February, 1873, Gov. Davis appointed John W. Glenn State Geologist. Col. Glenn remained at Austin most of the time, until the 15th of November, when lie started into the field with Charles E. Hall, his First Assistant. They went into Burnet, Llano and San Saba counties, from whence they returned about the middle of January, 1874. No report of what was done has been published. Mr. Hall, who was with me in the earls summer, states that little of importance, as regards the mineral resources of the State, was accomplished.

Col. Glenn resigned, and I was appointed by Gov. Coke State Geologist, on the 6th of March, 1874. The result of the work of the survey since then is in the following report.

THE STATE COLLECTION.

The specimens were arranged in natural groups in an upper room at the capitol, in 1867, since which time they have been very much disarranged, and, what is more unfortunate, many of the best specimens have been taken away; when, or by whom, I cannot tell. Col. Glenn told me that he thought several boxes of specimens had been taken away when the State was under military rule. Be this as it may, I only know that many of tile best specimens of the old collection are not now in the cabinet.

We have not attempted to re-arrange the cabinet, because

 

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there are not cases enough to properly do it; moreover, the entire room is not sufficiently large for a State collection, especially such a large State as Texas. A separate building is needed for this purpose; a small portion of this for a chemical laboratory, and the remainder for specimens. A botanical. and zoological department can be added to the survey with comparatively little additional cost. The botanist can test the strength of the different woods of the State, and ascertain, as far as possible, their durability; tell us of our best grasses for hay and pasturage, and about the most useful plants, making collections of all these for the State Museum, where, if a full collection of specimens of the mineral, geological, vegetable and animal productions of the State are arranged, and shown, it will be one of the most useful and attractive places of resort at the South. There a person could, in a few hours, learn more about Texas than lie would in months of travel. It will be a, pleasant and instructive place of resort to both old and young. The old capitals of Europe are noted for their splendid and extensive museums of natural history, imitations of which are now being made in the principal cities of the United States. Let Texas join them in this good and noble work. She has material for a larger, better, and more attractive collection, than any State in the Union.

Such a museum here would draw more capital and people to the State, than would pay the expense of making it.

HOW A GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IS MADE.

That the management of a geological survey is not well understood by many, is shown from the numerous applications made to this department for situations, from surveyors and topographical engineers. Some have applied for the purpose of carrying a surveyor's chain. The geologist does not survey a region with compass and chain. He merely examines the strata of rocks, the soils, acid general features of the country, making notes of its natural productions, its climate, etc. From the fossils, which are the animal and vegetable remains in the rocks, lie ascertains their geological age and position with regard to the other rocks of the country, from which he infers, whether or not they are productive of minerals, and, if so, the nature of those minerals. To arrive at these inferences, he also observes the lithological character of the rocks.

 

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It is the work of the geologist to read the ancient and modern records of the changes of the earth in times past. Even the most casual observer cannot fail to see that the earth of to-day is different from that of yesterday; the earth of this year is still more different from that of last year, and the earth of this century from that of thousands of years ago. Sea shells, imbedded in the rocks of our hills and mountains, teach us that Texas was once beneath the ocean. A careful study will also show that some parts of the State were dry land, while others were under the sea. Those parts which have been the longest dry land, are termed the oldest; for, strictly speaking, no part is older than the other, for matter is eternal, and. what we call new and young is only old matter in a new form.

REPORT

As this report is intended for the general reader, we give below a synopsis of the principal geological periods already known in Texas, omiting their subdivisions:

The Azoic are igneous rocks, destitute of animal and vegetable matter, thrown up from below, or rocks altered by contact with such melted matter. These last are termed metamorphic rocks. Gneiss, mica schist, etc., are examples of the latter, and granite and its associated crystaline rocks of the former. The metamorphic rocks may have had fossils, which have been destroyed by heat.

 

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Some of the azoic rocks are the oldest known, and others not, for there are granites in Texas, in Burnet, Llano and San Saba counties, which have been thrown up during the formation of the rocks of the older Silurian. At the base of the preceding diagram, life began in Texas, from which, extending upwards, there has been a regular progression until the present time. Life also began in many other countries at the same period. The. details of its progression from then till now are given is geological works.

WORK DONE IN THE SURVEY THE PAST SEASON

Just one week (eleventh of May) after the adjournment of the Legislature, we started in the field work of the survey, with Charles E. Hall as sub-assistant, Friench Simpson and Jack Coke as amateurs, going without wages to see and learn and help in the work; James E. Horn, bookkeeper and commissary; Wm. D. Carrington, Ed. Shands, and one other person made the party.

As we could not start or buy an outfit until an appropriation was made, and as such appropriation was only made on the eve of-the adjournment of the Legislature, it will be seen that we were quick and prompt to begin the work.

Our trip during the summer has only been a general reconnoisance, or partial survey of the following counties: Burleson, Milam, Robertson, Limestone, Leon, Houston, Anderson, Cherokee, Nacogdoches, Rusk, Smith , Henderson, Van Zandt, Kaufman, Rockwall, Upshur, Harrison, Marion, Dallas, Collin, Grayson, Fannin, Lamar, Tarrant, Parker, Wise, Cooke, Montague, Clay, Jack, Young, Wichita, Throckmorton, Stephens, Shackleford, Haskell, Jones, Callahan, Coleman, Brown, Lampasas, San Saba, Llano, Burnet and Williamson counties.

No detailed surveys Lave been made, the object being merely to ascertain the leading geological, mineralogical and agricultural features of the counties visited, as a guide to future examinations, and aid to the capitalist and immigrant. Our party were kindly received by the inhabitants of the counties, who often gave us material assistance,, for which we can only give them our thanks. To the following persons we were indebted for special favors,: Mr. T. C. Glass, Mr. Herndon and Dr. Morrow. of Calvert also, to Mr. Brown, of the Texas Farm and Home, of the

 

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same place; Messrs. Roberts and Moore, of Bremond; (Esquire Moore traveled with us for several days and gave us much valuable information;) Senator W. D. Wood and Col. J. W. Durant, of Leon county; Dr. Hunter and Col. Word, or Palestine; Capt. James Eastland, of Anderson county; Senator J. E. Dillard, Mr. T. L. Philleo, Esquire Ragsdale and Dr. Yoakum. of Cherokee county; Senator W. H. Swift and Mr. R. W. McLain, of Nacogdoches county; Senator Web. Flanagan, of Rusk county; Mr. Wm. Anderson and Geo. A. Kelley, of Jefferson; Hon. J. W. Lane, Mr. Dodge, Mr. J. 0. Crutchfield and Ammon Burr, of Dallas; Mr. Sam. Long and Col. Wilkins, of Lamar; Senator II. D. Allison and Dr. G. A. Foote, of Mc-Kinney; Senator Trollinger, of Grayson; Messrs. LaWrance, Cetti and Brewer, of Fort Worth; Capt. A. B. Gant, of Weatherford; Colonels Stratton and Whaley, of Clay county; Messrs. Graham and Medlan, of Young county; Stribbling & Co., Fort Griffin; Judge Brown, of Brownwood; Dr. C. S. Smith, Mr. Wells and Mr. Holden, of Llano county.

IRON ORES OF THE TERRITORY

These abound in Eastern and Central Texas; also in the northwest part of Grayson county and the upper cross-timbers.

ORES OF ROBERTSON AMD MILAM COUNTIES.

About five miles east of Calvert, in the bed of Mud Creek, and in the hills in its vicinity, on lands belonging to the Hon. Mr. Barziza, and also on property belonging to Messrs. Wood & Glass. These ores are limonites, or brown oxide of iron. Some are of the honeycomb variety, valued by iron manufacturers for being easily smelted. These ores appear to be in large beds and sufficiently abundant for the manufacture of iron. Similar ores abound on the tops of hills and hillsides on the west side of the Brazos river, in Milam county, and opposite the Herndon coal-bed in Robertson county. The County Surveyor of Milam county told us that he had sent specimens of these iron ores to a chemist in Nashville, Tennessee, Who reported silty-five per cent. of metallic iron. Judging from specimens, it is probable that froth forty-five to fifty per cent of metallic iron would be their average yield from the furnace.

 

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Limestones for fluxes are in Milam county; also ill Limestone county northward on the Central Railroad. Timber and coal both abound in Robertson and Milam.

Cherokee county has immense beds of iron ore. The hills around and in the vicinity of Young's Iron Works. on the International Railroad, about eight miles southwest from Jacksonville, and three miles front the Neches river, abound in first-class iron ores, of both the red and brown hematites. These works were in operation during the war, but the death of the enterprising proprietor, soon after the close of the war, caused them to be suspended. Their location is very pleasant, on an eminence amid trees, at clear springs of good water. The forge or smelting furnace is thirty-four feet square and thirty-four feet high, built in the most substantial manner of the best reddish brown sand rock-a rock peculiar to Central and Eastern Texas-at a cost of between $6000 and $7000. Ore, more than can be used for many centuries, lies in beds in the adjacent hills, and also scattered in loose masses over the surface of the country. Lime of the best quality about eighteen miles distant. This would have to be hauled by teams, as it is not on the line of the railroad. Pine and other timber very abundant on the surrounding hills. These hills or small mountains, composed mostly of sandstones and iron ores, are nearly, and perhaps entirely, the highest in Eastern Texas.

Young's Iron Works, on account of railroad and other facilities, offer peculiar and superior advantages for smelting purposes, and also for the manufacture of all manner of iron ware, to which may be added agricultural implements-the ash, oak and other wood, not far distant, being excellent for their wood work.

South of Rusk, about eight miles, amid pine-clad hills. and at a perrenial stream of clear water, is Philias Iron Works, where ore was smelted on large scale during the war, at the close of which the smelting was suspended. and only the foundry business continued; hence the works now are in a very dilapidated and decaying condition. The only drawback to the profitable manufacture of iron here is the want of better transportation than that offered by wagons. Here the ores are good, convenient, and in inexhaustible quantities, at least for the next hundred years. Lime abundant. only three miles distant. Plenty of pine and other timber on the hills and in

 

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the valleys, in the midst of a fertile healthy region. Sugar maples are on the banks of the streams, and the chinquapin, which in Virginia is only a large shrub, is here tree twenty to thirty feet high, and two feet in diameter.

NACOGDOCHES COUNTY.

The iron works of Mr. R. W. McLain, in the northern part of this county, are situated similar to the preceding, amid hills, among pines, and with plenty of good water. No lime was here used;. the blowing process, consisting of roasting and breaking up the ore, was here adopted. The metallic iron made here is said to have been better than most of the imported iron. 1.50,000 pounds of hammered iron bars were here made in about eight months, when the work was stopped. At the close of the war, Mr. McLain told us that in sinking wells, at and near the iron hills, an iron ore of good quality was passed through, until water was obtained at the depth of twenty to twenty-eight feet. The ore thus found was in loose detached masses. Mr. McLain, having a large body of land, told us that he would give three hundred acres of land at the side of the works to any one who would there manufacture iron. The works had been burned; hence all would have to be begun anew. These works were in the midst of a fertile country, about six mikes from Linn Flats, and twelve from Nacogdoches. Near Linn Flats arse beds of a very good brown coal, equal in quality to any ewe saw in Eastern Texas. See notice of this elsewhere.

BOWIE, CASS AND MARION COUNTIES.

Iron ores extend over a large portion of these counties, in the northeastern part of the State, where they have been largely smelted. A Mr. Nash had works for smelting ore in Cass county, which were in successful operation several year; before, and also during the war, at the close of which they were seized by the United States Government, and the work or smelting suspended, since which it has not been resumed. Specimens of the iron and steel made here and the .ore used are in the State cabinet. In the same county a Mr. Hewes is said to have had a smelting furnace during the war, now suspended.

The furnace at Kelley's iron works, about five miles

 

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northward from Jefferson, we found in full blast, producing daily upwards of one thousand pounds of pig iron. The ore occurs here in places, in and over the hills, like that at Philleo's, Young's, etc., but not as abundant, yet sufficiently so for all practical purposes. To save hauling, the ore was being excavated from the hill at the furnace. The furnace top is near the top of the hill and its base at tine foot of the hill. Hence the ore is dug out, wheeled a short distance, thrown into the top of the furnace, and the melted iron runs out at the base. :The following proportions of material are here used for smelting the ore:

• 18 bushels charcoal.
• 750 pounds ore.
• 60 pounds lime.

No available lime being near, oyster shells from New Orleans and elsewhere were used.

The hills around are clad with pines, mixed with other trees. The pine region extends northward to the State line.

Seventy workmen are employed at the furnace and fifty at the foundry.

I omitted to state that three hundred men were employed during the war at Philleo's Iron Works, near Rusk. Many of these men have families, hence the importance of encouraging manufactures of every available description, for they give a permanent population--a people who buy from the farmer and merchant; at the same time they add to the real available wealth of the State.

Iron ores are prevalent in nearly every county in the State where the older tertiary rocks prevail. In Anderson county, about three miles southward of Palestine, on land belonging to Judge Reagan, an excellent quality of iron ore crops out on all sides of a large hill, forming an extensive bed, so reported to us by the Judge. On the road

 

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from Jacksonville to Rusk, in Cherokee county, we passed over several iron hills. Cherokee, to all appearance, has iron ore enough to supply all the wants in iron of the entire South for centuries. It should have been stated before that iron was made from the ores of Anderson county during the war. We did not have time to visit the locality. Iron ore is also in the vicinity of Whitesboro, in Grayson county, in the tertiary of that region. These ores are in an iron hill or ridge, a few miles west of the town.

In the hills, near Mt. Enterprise, in Rusk county, there are good iron ores, similar to the best in Cherokee county, and sufficiently abundant for the manufacture of iron.

These tertiary ores are sedimentary deposits in beds and in concretions in the clays and sands. Red clays derive their color from the iron, which also adds to their fertility. The average yield of these ores, where they have been smelted, is reported to be about 50 per cent. Some manufacturers report much more, but we prefer to give safe and reliable estimates, that future manufacturers may not be disappointed. Chemical analysis of this or that ore is of little practical use, unless several specimens are carefully selected, so as to give a fair average of the ore to be ana- lyzed. Generally only the best are sent the "chemist," hence the manufactured yield of metal seldom equals that reported by the chemist. This deficiency also arises from the greater or less wastage incidental to all manufacturing establishments, where things are not and cannot be managed in such an accurate, saving manner as is done by a good chemist in the laboratory.

IRON ORES OF WESTERN TEXAS

These ores are mostly of a different class from those of the tertiary period. They are magnetites or magnetic iron ores, which are more massive, and yield a larger per cent of metallic iron than the tertiary ores, but they are also more difficult to smelt.

In Burnet, beds of magnetite are within two or three miles of the town of Burnet, from whence they extend southwestward into Llano county, in the vicinity of Packsaddle Mountain. Large boulders of the ore lie scattered over the surface, and it also occurs in immense beds. The rocks of this region are granites, and their associated rocks of igneous origin. Here there is plenty of lime, also of

 

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cedar and other timber, the best of water in abundance, a delightful, healthy climate and fertile soil.

The largest deposit of iron ore yet known in Llano county is on a creek near a Mr. Epperson's, about twelve miles west of the town of Llano, and from six to eight miles southeast of the Smoothing Iron Mountain. It is an immense and apparently solid mass of iron of an oblong, oval form, surrounded by granite, having evidently been raised up from below with. the latter. It has a length of about 800 feet, a width of about 500 feet, with an elevation of from 25 to 30 feet above its visible base. Loose masses of ore, some of which are of several tons weight, lie scattered over the surface of the iron hill and on its, outskirts. There is no ore known in any country which gives a larger per cent of metallic iron than this, nor any which will make a better quality of iron.

A large bed of iron ore of a similar character to the preceding is distant from it about eight miles, in a northwesterly direction. It lies between two granite ridges, and is traversed by veins of quartz in all directions. Here, too, there is ore enough for all practicable purposes to make metallic iron for ages.

On the road from Honey Creek to the town of Llano, about eight miles from the latter, the magnetite ores are in beds, extending across the road and into the adjacent mountain.

Northward, in the carboniferous region, in the southern part of Stephens county, iron ores are reported as rich and abundant.

Lime and timber, to make charcoal, for the manufacture of iron, abound in Llano county; nor are beds of good stone coal far distant, at the north, those of Coleman county being less than one hundred miles.

We know of no State which has greater advantages for the manufacture of iron than Texas, both in its eastern and western portions, taking climate, quality of ore and its availability, it being at or near the surface, fuel, both charcoal and stone coal. Only think what a saving to the State it would be to manufacture our railroad iron. Much more is paid out in this direction than would pay for the manufacture of the iron at home. Taking everything into consideration-people, as permanent citizens, added to our population, capital added to its available wealth, increase of trade, given to the farmer and merchant-all these things,

 

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and more, prove unmistakably that it would be better and more economical for the State, if the iron, needed by railroads and by the people, were made in Texas.

The patent puddling apparatus, which is expected to revolutionize iron manufacture, being an immense saving in cost, has recently been introduced into the Rockdale Iron Works, which are 70 miles north of Chattanooga, at Rockdale, 'Penn. Iron is now being made at less expense than in any other part of America.

It is said that rails for railroads can be made at Rockdale and sent to Pittsburg at less cost than they can be made at Pittsburg. The ore at Rockdale is said to cost $2 per ton at the furnace, coal only about the same, and limestone 80 cents.

The iron ores of Pennsylvania yield from 30 to 60 per cent. of metallic iron; the most of those manufactured (rive less than 50 per cent. The cost of the ores at the furnaces is reported to be from $3.50 to $4.50 per ton. Yet iron is made at large profits in Pennsylvania, which State, about twenty-five years ago, was loaded with debt and her people taxed heavily; but now her railroads, her iron and coal give an income sufficient to defray -the expenses of the State government, and the taxes of the people are little or nothing.

Texas has more and better iron ores than Pennsylvania. She lies plenty of coal, a better climate, a soil equal to any in the world; these and other advantages, rightly managed, will make Texas one of the most prosperous and wealthy countries of the world.

COAL OF THE TERTIARY.

-- BASTROP COUNTY.

On Cedar creek, three or four miles from the town of Bastrop, on the west side of the Colorado river, are some large beds of brown coal; on land belonging to Mr. P. H. Jones, in the north-west corner of the Rosseau survey, is the following section, taken by the writer in 1860:

 

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About one-quarter of a mile below this, on the same creek, the following section appears:

I traced the length of this bed, to the distance of 150 feet, coal of fair quality.

From one and a half to two miles further down, on the same creek, in the Lightfoot survey, there is another large coal bed 80 feet long, where is the succeeding section:

A few rods below this, the coal appears again in the bed of the stream, from which it extends down the creek about three miles. Last spring I sent Charles E. Hall to examine the coal beds of Bastrop county.

Last Spring Mr. C. E. Hall and Mr. Horne, of the survey. visited the coal deposits of Bastrop county. At Mr. Goodman's, they learned that coal from his mine has been Used to run the engine of a cotton factory, in the town of Bastrop, for more than six months, to the perfect satisfaction of the proprietors of the manufactory.

COAL OF ROBERSTON AND MILAM COUNTIES.

From Little river, in Milam county, north-eastwardly to the Herndon place on the Brazos, there are almost continuous coal beds, as is indicated by wells along the route; distance, 10 to 12 miles. On Little river are two beds, the upper 4 to 5 feet thick. and the lower 6 to 8, to the bed of the stream-the base of the coal unknown.

It has an exposed thickness in the banks of the Brazos river, a few rods below the old dwelling of Mr. Herndon,

 

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of from 15 to 25 feet, the base of the coal bed shot seen, the coal forming the bred of the river, and extending across the stream. Here it has little or no rock roof, but, instead, is covered with from 4 to 6 feet of clay and dark. vegetable soil, as seen on the banks of the river. This, however, will detract little from the value of the coal, if in mining the method is adopted which is practiced in some of the English mines, only prop for a few feet, take out all the coal, let the roof fall in, and the working go ahead into the bank. This could be easily done at the Herndon place, which has about 700 acres, all or nearly all. of which is valley land, underlaid by tile coal, which again outcrops in the banks and bed of the Little Brazos, 2 to 4 miles westward.

On re-visiting this place last spring, I was sorry to find the coal bed on fire, and to learn that it had been ore fire about two years. It burns slowly, for the surface soil falls in and smoulders the burning mass below. Floods in the river have, on several. occasions, nearly extinguished the fire, at which times it might have been put out with very little labor.

Concretions of sand and limestone abound in the strata of the hills winch overlie the coal. Many of these are of large size, some of them. being from five to tell feet in diameter. These concretions are loose in large quantities in the bed of the Brazos, at the upper end of the coal bed at Herndon's, where also some of the loose lime rocks are filled with cretaceous fossils, cryphias, ostnas, etc., showing that the cretaceous strata are not distant. In the sandstones here, we found impressions of leaves and palms. some two and three feet long; also, many leaves of trees or shrubs of exogynous plants, nearly all of which are entire, only one specimen of a lobed leaf being found-this is a platanus. Some of these entire leaves are very large, and have prominent veins. They evidently belong to the eocene of the tertiary, and are in strata overlying the coal. In none of the tertiary coals of the State have we seen vegetable remains in food preservation, in the shales in contact with the coal, excepting in Fayette county, where are oblong ribbed fruits, about an inch in length.

This Brazos coal bed probably extends eastward five or more miles, a well having been sunk not far from the town of Calvert in which a coal bed was penetrated twenty feet, and the boring stopped on account of the flow Of water. It

 

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may be, and probably is, the case that this water is merely as small stream flowing over the coal bed, similar to those passing over the coal into the Brazos, where are some small streams and springs, which, however, affect only a small portion of the coal bed; hence, at a different place near Calvert, water might not be found in the coal.

Northeastward from the Brazos coal, about eight miles east of the town of Bremond, at Mr. David Barclay's, we obtained the following section of his well:

Water not abundant. Mr. B. intends to dig deeper. Mr. B. says that No. 7 contained many small fragments of coal. At Mr. Morgan's place, half a mile from Mr. Barclays, in ravine, is the section below

only being exposed and depth unknown.

Near Mr. Smith's, about one mile from. Mr. Barclay's, the coal is exposed along a ravine for several hundred feet, at the depth of six to ten feet from the surface. A well was dug several years ago, near Mr. Smith's house, to the. depth of nearly twenty feet, where coal was dug into to the depth of about ten feet, without finding the bottom of the bed, and the well abandoned.

As coal has been found in all wells in the vicinity of Mr. Barclay's, it is probable this coal bed extends over an area of several hundred acres. This coal is of fair quality, very similar to the Brazos coal. Northeastwardly from Bremond, about eighteen miles, on Head's prairie, in Lime-tone county, near the Irving place, the coal clops out in several places in a ravine. Here the coal is of a compact texture and good quality, having been tested by blacksmiths, and also for propelling an engine to run a cotton

 

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gin at Kosse. Here the coal is so pure that it does not injure the water in wells and springs, all of which afford excellent water. This bed of coal is about four miles long and three wide, and six or more feet thick. At one place in the ravine, we were told that it had been dug into to that depth without finding its base. A few miles distant coal was found at the depth of eighty feet.

Some gentlemen of Dallas have given me the following analysis of this coal by Prof. Maurie, of Chicago:

Prof. Maurie wrote, in reply to the Dallas gentlemen, that the coal was excellent for fuel, and also for the manufacture of gas. The yield of coke also shows that it is good for the manufacture of iron.

LEON COUNTY COAL.

At Bear Grass, in the northern part of Leon county, there is an exposure of coal in a ravine, at a mill run by water from springs. Here the coal extends across the stream, and is seen again 200 to 300 feet above, in its banks, these being nearly covered by sand. A few rods distant, about twenty feet above the ravine, a well was dug by Messrs. Roberts and Moore, of Bremond. At about twenty feet from the surface, coal was found, and passed into to the depth of nine feet. Several hundred pounds of this coal was taken by them to the State Fair of 1873, at Houston, where a cotton gin, on exhibition, was being run by an engine heated by Pittsburg coal. A trial was here made to see which was the best, and the Texas coal found fully equal to the Pittsburgh; so said the man (Col. Win- ship, of Atlanta) who had charge of the engine.

We traced this coal for several hundred yards up the ravine, and also saw the fire clay, which is usually above the coal, exposed in other ravines in the vicinity. Hence, there is no doubt but that the supply of coal is ample for all practical purposes. Saw some very good iron ore on the hills here, but apparently not enough for the profitable making of iron. As our stay here was only a part of a day, it may be that other and more extensive beds of iron

 

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ore may be found in that neighborhood. Here are fine and permanent springs. The situation is pleasant, amid hills; the International railroad only eight or ten miles distant. These things make this a good place for a manufacturing town.

Small deposits of coal are exposed in ravines about seven miles southwest or Centerville, near a Mr. Patrick's. It is possible that thicker beds of coal than now shown there may be found at a greater depth.

A large coal bed is said to be seen in the bank of the Trinity- river, about fourteen miles below the Alabama Ferry.

COAL IN ANDERSON COUNTY.

Near Douglas, in this county, boring was being made for coal (June, 1874), at a place we visited, accompanied by Dr. Hunter, of Palestine. Here there is a small bed of coal at the bottom of a ravine. A shaft was being sunk on the hill above. This boring, at that place, was unwise, because the ravines around had already penetrated the earth to considerable distance. Did not think the indications for coal of much promise, and have not heard the result.

In the northern part of this county coal beds of small extent are exposed in ravines on the Bergen league, a few miles north of Fosterville.

COAL OF RUSK COUNTY.

About four miles northeast of Henderson, on the banks and in the bottom of a small stream, is the outcrop of a large bed of coal. On the sides of the bank, about three feet of the coal is seen. Mr. Park, who accompanied us to the spot, said that he had dug into the bed of coal to the depth of four or five feet, without finding its bottom. This coal is compact, and resembles in appearance the best coals of Robertson county. Another bed of coal, about six miles southward of Henderson, is reported to have been passed through in digging a well. This bed is said to have been about six feet thick.

OTHER TERTIARY COALS.

About thirty stiles south of Marshall, on the Sabine river, at the Coal Ferry. on the Trammel Trail, is bed of

 

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coal which, at low water, can be seen to extend across the stream. Coal is also reported to have been lately found in a bed 3 to 4 feet thick, a few miles from Marshall.

At the Sulphur Creek Bluffs, in Cass county, there is a coal bed 3 to 5 feet thick. The following analysis of this coal was made many years ago by Dr. Riddell, who was then Professor of Chemistry in the University of Louisiana, at New Orleans. He was a brother of the late chemist of the Texas survey. This analysis was made for a gentleman of Jefferson (Mr. Moseley), to whom we are indebted for it:

Dr. Riddell reported the coal to be good, and the above analysis proves it to be good for fuel for the manufacture of iron, after having been coked; also superior for making gas.

Not far from the Jourdan Salines coal was found at the depth of about 70 feet, in a well sunk by the Texas Pacific Railroad Company. Bed 3 to 4 feet thick and coal good, so reported.

At Dallas specimens of brown coal were given us, which is said to occur about 25 miles northwest of the city. This is probably a tertiary coal in the upper Cross Timbers.

In the northwest part of Grayson county, not far from Whitesboro, are some beds of coal 2 to 3 feet thick in the tertiary. Surface specimens of an inferior quality, and none others seen.

We have received specimens of coal from Burleson county, and also from several counties southwestward nearly to the Rio Grande, hence these tertiary coal. beds may be said to begin near the Rio Grande, southwest of San Antonio, and extend in a northeast direction to Bowie county, near the northeast boundary of the State. The larger beds are along the western boundary of the eocene of the tertiary, near its Junction with the cretaceous. Below, or in the coal beds, we have found no tertiary fossils, with the exception of the fruit in the shale above the coal in Fayette. county, near the southern boundary of the eocene. A few miles above the Brazos coal at Herndon's-it may be 25 or 30 miles-in

 

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the west bank of the Bravos, is a shale 25 to 30 feet thick, This shale is very friable, and probably of the same age as the coal. It contains tertiary fossils.

It was customary a few years ago to call all tertiary coals lignites, or imperfect coals, and of little value. But the experience of the last fifteen years has proved that coal of good quality often occurs in the tertiary. It is so in Texas. and extensively so in the Rocky Mountain States and territories. Says J. Ross Browne in a report on the mineral resources of the Western States and territories, p. 228:

"Modern geologists have abandoned the idea that coal, to be of a good quality, must be found in one particular formation. Experience, the most reliable guide, contradicts such a theory. Researches in India, China, Australia, New Zealand, Chili and the States on the Pacific coast of the Ignited States, prove that good coal, adapted to nearly all purposes, is found outside of the carboniferous formation. Science has failed to demonstrate that good coal may not be found in any geological formation."

Coals of the tertiary period are now extensively used in the Rocky Mountain States and territories, and also in those of the Pacific coast. In California, coal is now mined to the depth of even 800 feet at the Black Diamond mine. It is found by experience that the tertiary coal of the Pacific States "is less destructive to boilers and grates, than the anthracite imported from Pennsylvania, or the bituminous coals of Australia."

Dr. F. V. Hayden, United States Geologist, in a report to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, from Silliman's Journal, of March 1868. says: "My examination of the geology of Nebraska, during the past season, failed to develop any workable beds of coal within the limits of that State. My attention was then directed to the great lignite deposits of the Laramie plains. I found the lignite of excellent quality, in beds from 5 to 11 feet thick, and I estimated the area occupied by this basin at 5000 square miles. Its most eastern limit is about 10 miles east of Rock Creek." Here follows a list of localities.

"The lignite taken front the beds oil Rock Creek is front the outcroppings, yet it burns with a bright, red flame. giving out a good degree of heat, leaving scarcely any ash. and is quite as desirable fuel for domestic purposes, as any wood. It is non-bituminous, exhibits just a trace of sulphurate of iron, which, decomposing, gives a rusty, reddish

 

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appearance to the outcrops, and there are seams of jet, 1 to 12 inches in thickness, which look much like cannel coal, and is thus termed by the miners.

The Union Pacific Railroad will pass directly through those great coal fields, and as most of their freight will go westward for many years, the cars, on their return, can be loaded with this lignite, thus to be distributed through Nebraska, at a cost much less than that of wood at the present time.

There are also indications of an abundance of iron ore in the vicinity of these deposits, and the Union Pacific Railroad Company contemplates establishing rolling mills in the Laramie plains at no distant period.

The next point visited was South Boulder Creek, the Marshall mines, which are probably the most valuable in the West. I made a pretty", careful examination of these mines, which have been wrought for four or five years. An average of 5O tons is taken from this place daily, and sold in Denver at prices varying from $12 to $15 per ton. The beds are at the foot of the mountains, and dip to such an extent as to expose the whole series, eleven in number, varying from 5 to 12 feet in thickness, so that we have front 30 to 50 feet at least of solid lignite."

I give the above long extracts, because the value of Texas tertiary coal has been questioned, lignites, as they have generally been called.

Prof. Rogers, many years ago, in his report on the geology of Pennsylvania, proposed to class coals according to their chemical composition. He proposed the following classification, which seems preferable to any other, and better fitted to designate coals as they are now known.

The semi-bituminous he divides into semi-bituminous cherry coal, and semi-bituminous splint coal.

The bituminous into coking coal, cherry coal and splint coal.

When Prof. Rogers proposed the above classification,

 

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the tertiary coals of Texas and the great West were little known, so little, that they were not alluded to by him. But, with perhaps slight modifications, it will include these tertiary coals, which may be placed in the second and third classes.

In Texas, no anthracites of any commercial value are known; but among the tertiary coals of the State are the semi-bituminous and the hydrogenous, or gas coals. Most of them belong to the semi-bituminous, that is, they abound in the ingredients which make bitumen, as shown by chemical analysis, and by the scent which they give when burned.

That they are valuable as fuels, and for most all the purposes to which coal is applied, has already been proved by experiments made on a large scale. The coal of Bastrop has been satisfactorily used for more than six months to run an engine in a cotton manufactory at Bastrop. That of Robertson county has been tested on an engine to run a steamer, also, tested in New York and at Pittsburg and pronounced to be a good and valuable coal for the ordinary purposes of fuel, and also, for the manufacture of iron; the person having charge of the experiment at Pittsburg, wrote to a leading citizen of Austin, Judge Terrill, that this coal. would run puddle iron without coking.

In Washington Territory, coals of the middle tertiary (miocene) are used to run engines on steamboats and elsewhere. Let it be remembered that our Texas coals under consideration, are of the eocene, or older tertiary, and that too, at the very dawn of this period.

According to Prof. Rogers, the semi-bituminous coals also soften and swell into compact coke, but do not agglutinate at all, or only slightly; they are, therefore, equally eligible with the non-coking.. bituminous varieties for certain purposes of combustion, while they are preferable to them in heating power, in proportion to the greater weight of solid matter they contain.

I have been told that some of our tertiary coals, when tested on the engines of railroads, burn too fast, and are not easily regulated, as the grates of the engines are now made. It is probable that, with differently made rates, where the draft can be accurately regulated, this difficulty would be removed.

Our former State Geologists, Drs. Moore and Shumard, regarded the tertiary coals of the State as of little value,

 

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and thus pronounced them, without taking the trouble to test them in a practical manner; hence, it is difficult to convince many people of their real value as fuels, and hence the tests which were made a few years ago with the Brazos coal of Robertson county by as Austin company, who, finding it a good coal, invested in coal lands there; since which, some members of the same company have also bought coal lands in Bastrop county.

Let the people of the State be assured that many of the coals of Central and Eastern Texas are of equal value to many coals of the carboniferous period, and even superior to some of them, excelling in this respect as fuel for public and private buildings and other purposes, to which they will- ere long be applied.

I will add another item which I had almost forgotten. A few years ago, Willard Richardson, of the Galveston News, received a letter from the secretary of a northern coal company, requesting information about the coal and iron of Texas. This letter was referred to me, and a long correspondence ensued. I sent him specimens of the coal anti iron of Robertson and Milam counties, both of which were reported by him to be better than lie had expected to see from Texas. This company would have started the manufacture of iron in Robertson county, had not radical rule and radical reports of disorder in Texas prevented. Since I began to write this report, I have received a letter from the secretary of another northern company, inquiring about the coal and iron of the tertiary period, of the State. To this letter I have not yet had time to reply.

Our State has been in such an unsettled and unfortunate condition, politically, as to prevent many capitalists from investing here, but under the present government confidence is again restored, and we have the dawn of a good tune coming, when our coal will be used, acid our iron ores manufactured.

COAL OF THE CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD

The carboniferous extends over a much larger area in the State than we supposed possible last spring, at the commencement of our labors in the field, and if the survey had accomplished nothing more than has been done in this portion of the field, it would have done a good work. Tile carboniferous formation has been traced from. the western Part of Montague county westward through Clay and Jack, into Archer and Young counties; thence westward through

 

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Throckmorton into Haskell county, and south through Jones, Shackelford and Stephens into Callahan, Coleman and Brown counties. From reports from Eastland county, and coal said to be found there, there is no doubt but that it is also included in the boundaries of the carboniferous, which extends southward from Brown and Lampasas into Llano and Burnet counties. From former explorations, I feel confident that Concho, McCulloch, Menard and Mason counties belong mostly to the carboniferous period. It is also highly probable that a large portion of the unexplored region of the western part of the State belongs to the same formation. This much we know, that we have a larger coal field, by many thousand square miles, than Las ever before been made known.

The coal field in Young county, around Fort Belknap, has long been known, and its coal was used by the governmen officers, when Fort Belknap was occupied by them, many years ago.

A part of this bed of coal is about a mile above the Fort, outcropping- in several. ravines which empty into the Brazos river. On a recent visit to this place, with Col. Graham, of Young county , we found two beds of coal there, the upper between two and three feet thick; and the lower exposed about three feet in the bottom of the ravines, and. base not seen. This coal has been quarried to a considerable extent lately for the use of blacksmiths. At present. there are but two families living at the Fort, the government buildings having mostly been destroyed, and the remainder being in ruins. As there is plenty of good wood there, the coal is not now used for domestic purposes.

On Whiskey creek, about two miles north of Fort Belknap, there is a fine exposure of the coal strata, of which the following is a section, taken from near its junction with the Brazos river:

 

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A few hundred yards higher up the stream, where coal, a few years ago, was mined to some extent, is the following section:

Here the sandstone above the coal contains coal plants, and is ripple marked. There are several other places on Whiskey creek where the coal outcrops.

North of Fort Belknap, at the distance of about six miles, near the former residence of Judge Harm enson, is a bed of coal five feet thick. This bed is exposed along the base of a hill to a distance of front twenty to twenty-five yards. Here coal has been dug out, both for fuel and for blacksmithing.

In the northern. part, on Coal creek, near the Salt Fork of the Brazos, in Young county, is a large bed of coal, which has lately been mined to some extent for the use of blacksmiths. Here the coal is of a very good quality, in a bed five to six feet thick at the base of a small hill. Owing to recent rains, and the half-way, careless manner of mining the coal, its real thickness could riot be measured, but it probably is thicker than stated above. Above the coal strata is a bed of limestone one to two feet thick, and above this, sandstone five to six feet, and again, limestone two to three feet, capped with a brown sand rock. The upper limestones in the vicinity abound in fusilina shells. The tops of the adjacent hills have the conglomerate, which overlies a large portion of the hills of the coal region.

Coal is said to outcrop on the banks of a small. stream, about three miles from the coal on Coal. creek.

 

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No. 5 extends along the side of the mountain more than half a mile, in some places having an abundance of ferns and calamites. Both above and below No. 3, adjoining it, fossil shells are abundant and finely preserved. Productus Rogersii, Athyris subtilita, Fusilina-two species and both very common, Belerophons, Crinoids, Allorisma subcuneata, and several other bivalves; Pleurotomaria tabulata and sphaerulata, Spirifer cameratus, rare. Of these, and many other carboniferous fossils, we obtained a large collection.

The bed of the Clear Fork of the Brazos, in the northern part of Stephens county, is composed of coal, which extends under both banks, as is seen in low water, at which time the coal is quarried for the use of blacksmiths. It is obtained in large blocks, is black, breaks with a concoidal fracture, and is in every respect a very good coal. We saw specimens of it at a blacksmith's, at Fort Griffin. This blacksmith told us that coal had been quarried from that coal bed during the last ten years, and that the bottom of the the bed had not been reached. At the time of our visit rains had raised the streams so high that we did not go to see this coal bed.

On Hubbard's creek, in the same county, there is another large bed of coal, four to five feet thick, which also has been used quite extensively by blacksmiths, showing that these coals are quite free from sulphur and other impurities.

COAL IN CLAY COUNTY.

At the well of Mr. John Preston, two and a half miles southeast of New Henrietta, we obtained the following:

 

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And well unfinished and being dug at the time of our visit.. No. 3 abounds in fern leaves and calamites in a fine state of preservation (carboniferous). No. 4 has small particles of coal. No. 5 contains marks of roots and stumps, six or more inches in diameter. A large portion of the ferns are of the same species as those found in Young county.

We were told at Henrietta that two men had recently found a bed of coal several. feet thick about five miles distant from the town, but they would not tell where, because they wished to buy the land. Other localities of coal in Clay county were also reported.

COAL IN MONTAGUE COUNTY.

In the southwest corner of this county, on Sandy creek, about four miles from Judge Marlett's, a coal bed extends along the creek about three hundred feet. At this place we obtained fine specimens of calamites and ferns. The outcroppings of the coal here are of an inferior quality, but good coal may abound farther into the side of the hill, at the base of which lies the coal bed.

About a mile up the creek, and high up in the hillside, is another coal bed of similar character.

COAL OF COLEMAN COUNTY.

On Horne creek, nearly eighteen miles southwest of Camp Colorado, is a coal bed, which is worked by a Mr. Waldrup, who sells coal to the blacksmiths.

Near the Colorado river, about midway of the southern boundary of the county, is a coal bed about four feet thick, which is said to outcrop near the base of a hill, and also on the opposite side of the same hill. At a blacksmith shop in Brownwood, Brown county, I saw specimens of this coal.

There is also said to be a coal bed immediately south of Santa Anna Mountain, and another bed at Blackwell's ranche, on the line between Coleman and Brown counties.

On Little Bull creek, in Coleman county, is a bed of coal, which is said to be six to eight feet thick, from whence

 

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coal is furnished to the blacksmiths of San Saba county, where we saw it used. The use to which it is applied proves it to be excellent.

COAL IN LLANO AND SAN SABA COUNTIES.

In the honey creek cove, four to six miles front the Packsaddle Mountain, coal in large pieces has been found in the bed of the creek. At this locality, I saw shale at the base of the bank of the creek, but did not see any coal in its native bed. Specimens of coal from this locality are in the bed of the stream, and if the coal can be obtained in large quantities (which is quite doubtful) it will prove to be a valuable acquisition for use in manufacturing the iron ores of that region.

In San Saba county, north of the San Saba river, are shades in hillsides, the hills being mostly sand rocks of the carboniferous age. In such places, Dr. Watson and Mr. Barrett told me they had seen coal. These gentlemen are noted for hunting the minerals of that region. They also report coal in Mason and McCulloch counties. They gave me some very fine mineralogical specimens for the State cabinet.

The preceding are mostly mere outcroppings of the coal of the carboniferous formation, and they are amply sufficient to convince us that in this large coal field there is plenty of good coal. Let us remember that most of these are only surface outcroppings; that in all the coal regions of Europe, and the older States of this country, the best coal is generally obtained at a great depth, coal. being mined in England to the depth of more than fifteen hundred feet, and in this country to more than eight hundred feet. Throughout our entire coal region, both tertiary and carboniferous, it is highly probable that at greater depths more coal will be found.

A few years ago, the State of Illinois was supposed to he almost without coal, only a few outcroppings being known in distant parts of the State. But the geological survey of that State has stimulated deep researches to be made at the proper places, and the result is a great abundance of good. coal.

Our carboniferous region is now but thinly settled; but now people are flocking there and making homes for themselves and families, and these people are every-year finding

 

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new coal beds. The survey has taught many where and how to look for coal. In one instance, we found coal in the cretaceous. This coal is but a small seam in the banks of the South Gabriel, near Liberty Hill, in Williamson county. Limestones with cretaceous fossils are above and below the coal, which is only about two inches thick, of small extent, and overlaid by a thin strata of sandstone.

OTTER'S CLAYS.

These abound throughout the carboniferous and tertiary of the State. There are few, if any, counties in these regions in which good common wares cannot be. made.

PORCELAIN WARE

Can be made of good quality, and probably of the very best, from the feldspars of Llano county, of which there are veins two and three feet thick near the base of Packsaddle Mountain.

COPPER.

Texas has one of the richest copper regions of the world, covering a large portion of the carboniferous formation, in the northern part of the State, especially abounding in the upper carboniferous. Associated with the copper, I found in several places, the present season, strata unmistakably carboniferous, as indicated by their fossils. Examples of this occur in Clay, Young, Throckmorton, and Haskell counties. In Throckmorton county, on the Graham road to Fort Griffin, about two miles before its junction with the Fort Belknap road, near the base of a hill, is a strata of copper ore about one foot thick. In the rocks above and below this are carboniferous shells, many of which belong to the same species as those before named, as being found in the bills near Graham, in Young county. During a hasty trip into Young, Archer and Clay counties, in. 1861, from the appearance of the hills and rocks of Archer county, and their resemblance to descriptions of the permian, of Germany, I was led to believe that Archer and other portions of the copper regions also belonged to the permian, and I thus stated in the Texas Almanac of 1868. Now, I think they belong to the upper carboniferous, because thus far no permian fossils have been found in that

 

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region, but upper carboniferous have been found in many places during the present season, associated with the copper bearing rocks and clays.

The copper lands extend from the western part of Montague county westward into Haskell county, and probably much farther westward and southwestward. In the southwestward part of Montague county, near the residence of Mr. Pevler, at his spring, is a bed of copper ore, about four inches thick, extending into the bank between sandstone. It is a green copper, (crysocolla and malachite), associated with cuprite or red copper ore. Mr. Pevler also showed us this same form of ore in a bank about one mile south of his house, and again, in small seams, in sand rocks, about half a mile northward from his house. Mr. Pevler, who has an interest in the copper mines of Archer county, and who has worked there in getting ore six months, now owns the copper lands near his residence. The hills and rocks of the Montague copper, are very similar to those of Archer county, and indeed of the whole copper region, where a red clay often and generally prevails. This clay is impregnated with the red oxide of copper, to which it probably owes its color. In it, copper concretions occur, which are frequently washed out, and lie at the base of the hills. Clays often form a large portion of either the base or middle of the hills. Rains and other causes wash the clays from beneath the rocky strata above, and give the hills a jagged and ruined appearance, often covering their sides with broken rocks. Sometimes large masses of rocks stand out alone on clay supports.

In the northwest part of Clay county, are some of these copper hills, at the base of which we found green, blue and black copper ores. These are near the mouth of the Big Wichita, and not far from the Red River. The black copper ores are generally overlooked by copper hunters, who are wide awake in their search for the green and blue ores.

In Wichita county, on Gilbert's creek, about three miles from its junction with the Red River, there is a deposit of green, blue and red copper, in a clay bank at the edge of the water. A few years ago, a considerable quantity of ore, from this place, was sent to Philadelphia, where it was smelted and said to yield more than sixty per cent. of copper. A company was formed for the purpose of working the mine, but the war came, Mr. Gilbert died, and nothing more was done with the copper mine, which now

 

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belongs to the children of Mr. Gilbert, some of whom are minors. In several. other places, on the banks of this creek, I found copper ores. At the place formerly worked. there is said to be a large bed of copper, at the base of the hill. The clays from above had fallen in, and I could only see loose masses of copper. only the outcroppings, which lead. not been considered rich enough to take away. Here the bed of copper is not far below the surface, which is a large prairie, the whole country being nearly all prairie land.

Knox county is said to have some very rich copper beds. The postmaster at New Henries told me that he was one of a large party out last spring for the purpose of hunting game, and finding minerals, especially copper. He gave me very rich specimens of blue copper, (malachite), of which he said lie saw beds of considerable thickness between sand rocks on the side hills of that region.

THE COPPER OF ARCHER COUNTY.

In the report of the General Land Office for 1869, p. 49. is a, notice of the copper ores of this county containing some erroneous statements. It is said to be in the permian period, and that if this "formation were ever known to exist in Texas, it has been mistaken for the triassic system, which is overlying the former to the southeast." In a notice, which I gave of this copper in the Texas Almanac of 1868, it is stated that Archer county probably belongs to the permian. Many years ago Shumard reported that the permian was at the Guadalupe mountains, of Texas. It has never been mistaken for the triassic by any geologist of the Texas State survey, nor does the triassic overlie it at the southeast. I now think that Archer county belongs to the upper carboniferous. Certainly no permian fossils have been found there. It is also stated that the veins of copper are very numerous in Archer county, and have been traced over the summits and sides of the hills, so that hardly a tract of one hundred and sixty acres can be found. without ore on the surface. It is supposed that these veins are contemporaneous with injections, at different periods, of quartz, trap and porphyry.

I have seen no veins of copper in the copper bearing strata of Northern Texas. Capt. Gant, of Weatherford, who is a very good geologist, and who knows more about

 

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the copper of Archer county than any other man, told me last September that lie had not found any veins there. It is possible, and very probable, that true veins of copper are west of the eastern portion of Haskell county, but not east of it. In this region, the copper is in beds or concretion:, both of these forms being quite to common. It is here, evidently, a sedimentary deposit, the beds being nearly horizontal, or but slightly inclined. I have not seen any of the azoic. igneous rocks in situ in that part of the State, nor are there any known injections or veins of quartz, trap and porphyry in Archer county.

In the northern part of Young county the red copperbearing clay appears, and washed front it, on the surface, are loose masses of ore, containing a small per cent of copper.

In several places, near the road from Graham to Fort Griffin, we saw outcroppings of copper in the clays at and near the base of the hills. This was in Throckmorton county.

In the vicinity of California and Paint creeks, in Haskell county, arc, loose copper ores on the sides and at the bases of the hills. The red copper clays Bear the head of Paint creek give color to its waters and have suggested its name. Still farther west, in Haskell county, the copper ores are more abundant and rail, the specimens from that region yielding bout the salmi per cent. of copper as the best ores of Archer county.

South of Archer, in Jones county, between California creek and the Clear Fork of the Brazos, in several places, I saw the copper clays and loose specimens of ore in ravines and the base or on the sides of hills. As both Haskell and Jones counties are unsettled, and we had no county maps, it is impossible to designate localities.

The copper ore of Northern Texas ought to be smelted there. Coal abounds there, to which will soon be added railroads now in process of construction. Col. Stratton, who lives near the Red River, in the northern part of Clay county, suggests the following plan, which seems to be a good one: Let furnaces be made as cheaply and well as possible, combining all recent improvements; then let so much per ton be given for the ore, grading the price according to quality; then the inhabitants of that section will furnish the ore, for loose specimens will be gathered from the surface of that country by men, women and children,

 

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and wagon loads will be driven to the furnace from all directions. It is said that recent improvements will reduce the expense of smelting, copper ore more than one-half. What was formerly a difficult work is now said to be simple and easy. Let this be as it may, more money can be realized from the working of the ore into copper at home than by taking he ore north to be smelted. Manufactured in Texas, it would aid in the settlement of the copper region, which is also a fine a agricultural country, and then the frontier protection now required would not be needed.

COPPER OF LLANO COUNTY .

On the Little Llano, near the northern boundary of the county, are some large veins of ore, containing a large per cent of copper. These veins are, some of them, from two to three feet thick in granites, and. their associated crystalline rocks also. The veins extend into the metamorphic rocks, gneiss and mica schist. Surface specimens show a large per cent. of iron mixed with the copper. It may be that downwards the ore will contain a larger per cent. of copper than is now given.

A few miles west of this copper, ore of a similar character has been found in veins. A Mr. Tharp has been mining for silver and copper during the present season at a place near his house, about four miles west of Packsaddle Mountain. If I has found some fine specimens of blue copper, but had not, at .time of our visit (October) succeeded in finding a true vein. He is working in feldspathic granites, composed mostly of feldspar, considerable quartz, and bolt little mica. On the surface, near the road front Llano to , the cove of Honey Creek, about three miles from the latter place, I saw specimens of copper ore, to which my attention was called by Dr. C. S. Smith, of Llano. These were on the surface of the metamorphic mica schists, acid if a true vein is there, it will probably prove to be very valuable.

In the State Cabinet are specimens of copper ore which are said to have been obtained from near Eagle Pass.

The copper ores of Texas give promise to be next in value to its deposits of iron and coal. Westward and southwestward from the present known copper region, there are probably richer beds and veins than any yet known. Such are the geological indications.

Last winter Dr. Beaumont, of the State Department,

 

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gave me a specimen of native copper, which lie said was found in Northern Texas. Its finder reported such copper to be quite abundant in that portion of the State. I do not think it was found east of Haskell county. It may have come from the Lake Superior region, the specimens of which it much resembles.

LEAD.

Lead has been found in small quantities in Llano county, where it is associated with silver. At an old Spanish mine, not, far from Honey creek cove, near the top of a mountain a few hundred feet high, mining appears to have been done for both lead and silver. The mine is in the calciferous sand-rock, associated with the magnesian limestone of the lower silurian. Large rhomboidal crystals of calcite are abundant near the entrance of the mine. These are sometimes termed the "blossoms of lead," by some miners in Missouri, where lead is found in the same geological formation. A piece of slug, given me by Dr. C. S. Smith. of Llano, who obtained it at the old furnace, where the ore was smelted, contains lead, which has been smelted. Around the entrance of the mine are some rocks which contain titaniferous iron ore.

Mr. Magee, a few years ago, had the water drawn front the mine, which is said to be forty or fifty feet deep, but from some cause unknown to me, nothing more was done at that locality.

A Mr. Woodward, who lives on Cherokee creek, in San Saba county, lately showed me some fine specimens of galena, which he said he obtained not far from his residence, but he refused to designate the spot, hoping that ere long he would be able to buy the land on which the mine is situated. Here the lead occurs in the same kind of rocks which contain the Spanish mine of Llano. Mr. W. said that lie knew the lead ore at his place to be very abundant, also saying that lie was familiar with the lead-bearing rocks of Illinois and Missouri, having there lived near the mines.

In Burnet county, about four miles from Bluff ton, is a lead and silver mine, which has been worked to some extent. Several specimens of ore from this mine are in the State Cabinet. Working at this place has been discontinued, its owner having been engaged in digging for silver in Llano county during the past summer. The ore near

 

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Bluffton is go much disseminated through the rocks, it is said that its working did not pay well. It is also reported that the working at the mine will be renewed, and perhaps then richer and better veins will be found.

From Western Texas, rich specimens of lead ore are in the State collection. These were gent to the State survey before the war, during which their labels were lost. A specimen of it, rich in silver, hag been stolen from the collection during the past year. I allude to this, because, when in Llano county last October, I was told that a man had shown specimens there to certain parties, some of whom remembered to have seen the game specimens in the State cabinet; hence the rich specimens of silver and lead ore, said to have been recently found in Llano county, may have belonged to another part of the State.

Dr. Hunter, of Palestine, in Anderson county, who wag surgeon of a regiment, or part of a regiment, which passed through Western Texas far out towards the Rio Grande. On this route he saw at two different places, in the rocky sides of the mountains, ledges of rich galena. These were in the vicinity of a certain old fort, which is now unoccupied. Dr. II. pointed out the places on the map, and lie feels confident he could again find them.

From the limited knowledge we have of the geology of this portion of Texas, obtained from the Mexican boundary survey and other sources, there is little doubt of there being the same geological formation in the far western parts of the State as that of the rich lead and silver mines of Mexico.

In many of the old settled counties, we have reports of lead ores having formerly been known; so rich that lead for bullets was there obtained by the old hunters. Such things are now told in some counties where it is useless to expect to find lead ores.

Parson Watkins, a Methodist preacher, living in the northern part of Nacogdoches county, last summer told me that he knew there was a rich lead mine in Sabine county, not far from the town of Milam, in the Policy neighborhood, on the farm of John C. Burroughs, on a creek called Mine creek. The father of Parson Watkins was one of the first settlers of Sabine county. Re was informed of the mine by an old Mexican, and finally, after repeated hunting during two years, he succeeded in finding it. The parson said that, when he was a boy, his father came home one

 

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day laden with lead, saying that lie had found the mine, and subsequently, whenever lie wanted lead, he would go to the mine and bring this ore home and smelt it. This the parson well remembers. But his father died without telling where the mine is, more than he revealed to his son on his death bed, telling that it is at the base of the bank of the creek, in a field now cultivated. The creek has low banks, which have been ploughed nearly to the water's edge; so the ore is covered with earth, aid the parson cannot find it, nor any one else. The parson is a. middle-aged, healthy, intelligent man, and lie certainly can have no motive for misrepresenting. I have not been in Sabine county, and was going northward when I met the parson, near whose House we encamped at night.

The old limestones of the lower silurian, in Burnet, Llano and San Saba counties, have lead ores, as we know from authentic specimens received from that region; also the metamorphic rocks prevalent in those counties may have both lead and silver. These are gneiss, mica, schist and hornblende slates.

GOLD

has been found in small quantities in the sands and schistose rocks of Llano and Mason counties, where there has been much labor given to obtain it. In the spring of 1861, 1 succeeded in getting a little gold from quartzose veins in mica slates, on the banks of the Llano river, about eight miles south of Fort Mason. Recently, in Llano county, on the banks of Sandy creek, I saw Dr. C. S. Smith pan out a very little gold from pulverized mica slates traversed by quartzose veins. This shows the native beds of the gold found in the sands of Sandy creek. Numerous ravines through these metamorphic rocks empty into the creek, bringing down the golden sand; hence we need not expect to find gold in the granites and their associated crystalline rocks, but rather in the still older metamorphic rocks, gneiss, mica slates, etc., which generally underlie the granite, or are in close proximity to it. Mining experience teaches this. Dana, in his Manual of Geology, page 413, in alluding to the paleozoic age, says: "Much of the gold of the world comes originally from rocks, which were metamorphosed and filled with veins at this lime. The same is believed to be true of platinum and diamonds. None of the precious metals are yet known to occur in the crystalline

 

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line azoic. Some of the veins of tin, copper and lead, and mines of topaz, emerald and sapphire, are among the productions, of this epoch of metamorphism." A knowledge of this fact would have saved thousands of dollars of useless expenditure in Llano and other counties, in digging and blasting into granites and other igneous rocks. Much cf such work, has been done the past season. A gentleman, who said he was part proprietor of a silver mine near Babyhead Mountain, in Llano county, told me last summer that he had traced the silver vein to the base of the mountain, and up and over it, the veins passing; through to the other side. Last October I was at this mountain; passed over and around it; found it granite, with a few veins of quartz and feldspar; but could see no silver, nor any signs of it. Much search has been made, and many excavations made in the granites of Burnet and Llano counties. Even now many believe the Enchanted Rock mountains of Llano to abound in gold and other precious metals; but as these mountains are all granites and their associated igneous rocks, they afford little promise of gold or any other precious metal. No large amounts of gold have been found during the last thirty years in the rocks or sands of Texas. Some, in washing the sands of Llano county for gold, have made on an average about fifty cents a day.

SILVER

has been noticed to some extent under the heads of lead and gold A few years ago, several statements were published of a rich silver mine in Llano county, near the base of Babyhead Mountain, in the northern Dart of the county. The ore was reported to yield on an average about 240 to the ton. It may have been more; I write from memory, feeling sure that the amount is not overstated. Such yields of silver pay well, and it was published that this Llano mine was being worked and its ore shipped to New York to be smelted. It was also stated that preparations were being made to smelt the ore at home. This silver mine, was expected to cause the town of Llano (eight to ten miles distant) to improve rapidly.

I visited this locality last October. No work was being done there, and very little had ever been done. This surely would not have been, had the mine been as rich as has been represented. I could not there find a good specimen of either silver or lead.

 

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Again it was published in the newspapers last summer, that rich silver mines had been found in Llano county, at a place few miles east of Babyhead Mountain, near the headwaters of Little Llano river. Some of the ores here were said to have $900 in silver to the ton-an uncommon richness.

I did not visit this locality. Mr. Johns, of Austin, one of the proprietors of these mines, has specimens from there of silver, lead and copper, which are now before me. These will yield a large per cent. of these metals. The only question as regards the value of the mine is: do such ores abound there in large quantities? If they do, it is one of the richest mines in the United States.

It was also published last summer that tons of silver ore were being sent from Llano county to the North to be smelted. If so, where was the ore obtained? to whom was it sent? and by whom smelted? and what was the yield per ton? Some of the well informed people of Llano know nothing about it, and they even doubt whether it has been clone; hence it behooves those who own these silver mines, and have caused such statements to be published, to answer the above questions.

So much cheating has been done by speculators in buying and selling mines in the Rocky Mountain States during the past few years, that now well informed capitalists require strong proof before investing in mining property, and one of the strongest proofs that can be given is, by smelting large quantities of the ore, and also, by showing that the ore can be obtained at the mine abundantly, and for a long time.

Mr. Barnett and Dr. Watson, of San Saba county, gave me some specimens which may be stephanite, a black silver ore, containing a little sulphur and solve antimony. These specimens are in an unopened box of minerals, and have not yet been tested, for want of time. These gentlemen found this ore in Mason county, and report a very large deposit to be there, forming a large portion of a hill. Messrs. Barnett and Watson said the ore had been tested by Dr. Westfall, of the State Senate, and that the Doctor reported it to be an antimonial silver ore. If so, the mine will be of immense value.

TITANIFEROUS IRON.

Various forms of this occur frequently in Llano county, and have beets mistaken by many for more valuable minerals.

 

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Ilmenite is quite common, and has been mistaken for silver, and even for platinum. A teacher of chemistry reported it to be platinum, and lie felt so confident that he was right, that he persuaded a few others to join him and buy several hundred acres of the Llano county mountains. This was done secretly and as quickly as possible, to make sure of the tiling which was to give an immense fortune to each member of the company.

Throckmorton was then Governor, and I was his geologist. One of the members of the company who had invested $500 in gold in it, brought some specimens of the ore to me for testing. It being an old acquaintance, I told him at once what it was. This caused him to swear, for lie loved money, and could ill afford to lose it.

BISMUTH

A bed of this ore is said to be near the Little Wichita, in Archer county. Specimens from there were given me by Gov. Throckmorton, several years ago. A large bed of this ore is said to be there. It is a valuable mineral, being used to form alloys with tin, copper and other minerals. As yet it has not been found in any considerable quantity in the United States.

ZINC.

Ores of this metal are also reported to be in Archer county.

STEATITE OR SOAP STONE.

On Comanche creek, near Comanche mountain, in Llano county, are extensive dykes of hornblende rock, enclosing large masses of soap stone. One of these veins of steatite is about three hundred feet wide, extending in a westerly direction towards the Rondo creek, where, at the distance of eight miles, it appears again.

There are other beds of this rock in the mountains, on Sandy creek, about ten miles from its junction with the Colorado river. It has a bright gray color, a, fine grain, and a very compact texture, yet so soft, as easily to be cut with a knife, or sawed into thin boards. It is all excellent material for the construction of furnaces for smelting iron or copper. It makes good fire plates, ink-stands and griddles; these last do not require any grease to keep buckwheat

 

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wheat or any other cakes from sticking. It can be used for fence posts, as is done in some parts of New England. Pounded fine, and mixed with a little grease or tallow, it forms a very durable article to lessen friction in the axles of wagons and carriages. To obtain it for this purpose, wagoners cone trom a distance and consider it to be neater, better, and more lasting for that use than any thing else. Some one will make a fortune by malting axle grease from these soap stones of Llano county.

MARBLES.

The lower silurian rocks of Burnet, Llano and San Saba counties, contain some fine marbles of various shades of color; white, black, flesh color and clouded, which would be extensively used if near railroad or water transportation. These marbles, as far as known, are not equal to the best, but of very fair quality.

OTHER BUILDING ROCKS.

In both Burnet and Llano counties, are fine granites; also, gneissoid rocks, suitable for buildings or monuments, being of a quality equal to the best of any country. Superior limestones for buildings also abound there, and also in San Saba county. The limestones and sandstones of all. the counties in the carboniferous region will furnish an inexhaustible supply of good building material.

In the north-eastern part of San Saba county is a sandrock, which has been used to some extent for the manufacture of grindstones. About eight miles west of Weatherford, in Parker county, is a light gray, compact sandstone, resembling in appearance a fine grained granite. It is manufactured at Weatherford into grindstones, and also, for the foundations of monuments. It is also an excellent building rock. The supply is said to be ample for all purposes.

Many of the cretaceous limestones also furnish an excellent building material. The Austin limestone has been, and is being largely used for building at Austin. This limerock extends northward to the Red River. Last summer it was being used in the building of courthouses at Paris, in Lamar county, at Sherman, in Grayson, and at McKinney, in Collin county.

 

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In Eastern and Central Texas, there is a reddish brown sandrock, used by the International Railroad Company for the stone work of their road. It has also been largely used for chimneys, for this purpose being much better than brick. It is colored by the red oxide of iron, is fine grained and compact, forming more beautiful walls than the browd sandstones of Connecticut and New Jersey, which have been so largely used for building purposes in brew York and other cities. The Texas rock prevails in the iron region of the tertiary. Mountains of it are in Milam, Robertson, Cherokee and other counties.

ROOFING SLATE.

In the bank of Honey creek, near Packsaddle Mountain, is a slate rock, which probably belongs to the laurentian period, it being older than the potsdam sandstone, which overlies it. It is very similar in appearance to slates or Vermont and New Hampshire, which are used for roofs. We only obtained outside specimens of it, and those are not of sufficient firmness for roofs. It is highly probable that the interior slates are more hard and compact. This rock prevails in the region around Packsaddle in strata, dipping at large angles, often being nearly perpendicular, it having been uplifted from its original position by the upheaval of the granite.

HYDRAULIC LIMESTONE

which forms a cement which will set or become firm under water. It is an impure limerocks composed of lime, clay sand and magnesia, to which is added, in the best cements, a little iron.

An analysis made by Beck, of an excellent kind, found at Rondont, N. Y., gave the following composition

There is little doubt but that many of our silicious and magnesian limestones will make good cements, to form which it is not necessary to have rocks composed of the exact proportions given in the above analysis.

 

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GYPSUM,

which is a sulphate of lime, occurs in shall quantities, throughout the limestone region of the State, whatever may be the geological formation, gypsum being in the silurian, carboniferous, cretaceous and tertiary periods. To its wide dissemination, the great fertility of our soils is largely indebted.

On the headwaters of the Red River and its tributaries, is one of the largest gypsum formations known, extending for hundreds of miles, and affording inexhaustible supplies. Gypsum in all its forms is here, alabaster, selenite and all the coarser varieties. To the State it is worth more than the richest gold mine, for, by a liberal application of it to the sandy soils of the State, their fertility will be more than doubled. More will be said about this in the Agricultural Report.

SALT.

West of Corpus Christi, towards Brownsville, are many large and small shallow lagoons or arms of the Gulf, which, during the prevalence of winds blowing inland, joined with the tides, are filled with salt water, which is there evaporated, depositing the salt at the bottom in small crystals. At ebbtide, the salt is left dry, and is then collected for use. It is often ground before using. Large supplies are thus obtained.

At Jordan's, or Grand Saline, as now called, in the southern part of Van Zandt county, are large salt springs, or rather wells, in a valley of several hundred acres. During the war many wells were sunk here, and about 1000 sacks of salt daily made. Each sack has about 200 pounds. Now but one well is used, the supply of water from this being ample to make to make about fifty sacks a day, which is the average amount now made. To obtain the water, wells are dug through a sandy soil about eighteen feet, at which depth a quicksand is met, at the bottom of which is a hardpan, out of which. the salt water flows strong and fast, the supply being unlimited. One gall on of the water makes one pound and one-third of a pound of salt. An analysis of the water gives fourteen per cent. of chloride of sodium, the chemical name for salt. The water also has a small per cent. of iron and sulphate of lime and a trace of magnesia..

A very white and good looking salt is here made, which

 

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is sold at the works at prices ranging from $2.50 to $3.00 per sack, $3.00 being asked for one sack, and $2.50 for a larger quantity. At the tinge of our visit forty-two large kettles were full of the boiling water.

This saline is a little more than one mile from the Central. Pacific Railroad, and one hundred miles east of Dallas. It is one of the finest salines known, affording a much. larger supply of water than the Salt Springs at Syracuse. N. Y., which have largely contributed towards making a large city. The Grand Saline is in the tertiary, near the eastern border of the cretaceous.

At Graham, in the southern part of Young county, oil the Salt Fork of the Brazos, are salt works, owned by the Messrs. Graham, of that place. At the town of Graham, the banks of the Salt Fork for the distance of about three-fourths of a mile, in times of low water, are whitened near the water edge with salt. The incrustations of salt in a dry time extend across the stream. Water of considerable saltness is here obtained from shallow wells. To get stronger water a well has been sunk or bored, of which the following is a section of the strata passed through:

 

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The strength of the water increased with the depth the supply being inexhaustible; gives water frown 22 to 25) per cent.; clean white salt of the best quality.

At the time of our visit (September, 1874), the making of salt had been suspended, one of the Graham brothers having gone north to get new machinery for the works.

In the southern part of Wise county, salt is being made by a Mr. Fitzgerald. His works have been recently established.

Beds of salt are reported as being in the gypsum region of the Red River; also near the crossing of the Pecos, on the route from Fredericksburg to El Paso.

From the preceding it will be seen that Texas has more, and much more, than sufficient salt for all her wants now and forever.

At Swenson's saline, in the western part of Lampasas county, salt was largely made a few years ago, and al so at a saline in the eastern part of Llano county.

PETROLEUM.

A few years ago boring was made for petroleum in Nacogdoches county, about six miles south of Melrose. Here are several oil springs, from which the oil flows and spreads itself upon the surface of the water. From the surface of a shaft well, about one hundred feet deep, we obtained a bottle of the crude oil, which is very like that which flows from many of the oil wells of Pennsylvania. The indications at the surface springs, coated with oil, are much better for petroleum than is generally seen in the oil region of Pennsylvania.

The Nacogdoches springs are at the base of sandstone hills of the tertiary age. The oil flows from a bluish gray, shelly marl, at the base of buff sandstones, three to five feet thick, abounding in tertiary shells. When the supply is more limited, and the value of petroleum greater than now, it may pay, and pay well, to bore for petroleum near Melrose.

During Governor Throckmorton's administration, I visited some oil springs in the western part of Bell county, which were also coated with oil to some extent, but the supply was not as abundant as near Melrose. It may be proper to add, that the boring done at Melrose was by a Northern man, well posted in the oil matters of the oil

 

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springs of Pennsylvania. He bought a large tract of land in Nacogdoches, and died during the boring of the well above named; and then the work ceased and has not been resumed.

Asphaltum, in limited quantities, flows from the crevices of limestones in Travis county, north of Austin, and also from similar rocks near Burnet, in Burnet county. The supply is too limited to be of any commercial value, or to encourage boring for oil. Near the top of Gordon mountain, in Montague county, are some beds of asphaltum of small extent. These are in the cretaceous limestones.

Near Sabine Pass, and a few miles east of it, the oil is said to flow so plentifully as to make the sea calm to a considerable distance, even, during storms. A few miles north of this, at Sour Lake, are also oil springs, where oil floats upon the surface of the water.

EPSOM SALTS.

In Cooke county, on Indian creek, about eight miles southwest of Whitesboro, epsom salts (sulphate of magnesia) was manufactured largely during the war. A number of wells were there sunk to the depth of about sixteen feet, from which plenty of strong water was obtained for manufacturing on a large scale.

COPPERAS

was also made in large quantities on Copperas branch, four miles north of Whitesboro. At this branch, there are bluffs of alum shales, containing alum, sulphuret of iron, and fragments of coal. About five hundred pounds a day of copperas was here made during about two years. From here, nearly the whole State was supplied. A few hundred pounds of alum were also made at the same place.

SALTPETRE-NITRATE OF POTASSA

abounds in caves in Burnet, San Saba, and other counties to the west of them having caves in the limestone region. In the western part of Burnet, a few miles from Bluff ton, on a high hill, there is a cave in the lime rock of the lower silurian. Its entrance is about fourteen feet in diameter one way and ten feet the other, down perpendicular about twenty feet, at the bottom of which the opening, about ten

 

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feet high, goes onward nearly horizontally in several directions to an unexplored extent. During the water, saltpetre was extensively made from the manure of bats obtained from this. The refuse from the manufacture still lies in large heaps at the place of manufacture, near the entrance of the cave. Wishing to explore and measure the cave, I was joined by several amen and boys of that neighborhood. Down we went, each with a candle or torch to light the way, and I also a long tape line and assistant to measure the distance. On we went, taking the main entrance, from which most of the material for making saltpetre had been obtained, it being the largest. At the distance of about three hundred feet, we entered a, large avenue to the right. We found the odor from the bats very unpleasant. Straggling bats flew around us, inquiring why we were there, and large clusters of bats were on the sides of the walls and overhead. Presently, when the ceiling above came within six to eight feet of the ground, the bats became alarmed, and flew in such crowds around as to put out the lights of most of our party, causing us all to retreat hastily and abandon the idea of further explorations. The next day I went with a gentlemen of that neighborhood to see the bats issue from the cave to begin their night's work. When the sun was about half an hour high. we arrived at the entrance of the cave. About ten minutes before sunset a few bats came forth to reconnoitre and see the time of day, and, after doing this, back they went to report; five minutes later, a few came forth, rising twenty-five to thirty feet above the ground, and off they went with an undulatory motion in a more horizontal direction. Thicker and faster they came by thousands, circling round and round until. high above the ground; then away they gaily went over hill and valley. At sunset the ascending column was so thick that the flying bats nearly touched each other. They came forth by millions. Never before had I seen such an exhibition of life-gay, active life. Forth they went, catching insects here and there by thousands and by millions; hence these bats are useful in destroying night-going insects, who hide by day from the birds. I was told that the people living for many miles around that cave were not troubled with mosquitoes, nor with many other night-flying insects.

I have been told of another bat cave, not many miles from Georgetown, in Williamson county. Others are also

 

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in San Saba county. All these afford material for the manufacture of saltpetre, which, in a crude state, is quite common under overhanging limestone rocks in San Saba, Llano, Burnet and other counties. Tons of bat manure are in these caves, which, if not wanted for making saltpetre, would be equally as useful as guano as a fertilizer. Even the refuse heaps left from the manufacture of saltpetre would be useful to feed the growing crops.

PAINTS, OCHRES, ETC.

In the northern part of Cherokee county, not far front Young's Iron Works, are beds of a fine grained, very white clay, which has been used to some extent in painting dwellings and outbuildings. At Rusk, we were shown the woodwork of some rooms, which had been painted with this clay, and, 'gad we trot been told, we would have supposed it to have been done with white lead. The clay was mixed in water and applied to the wood with a whitewash brush, and when dry the whole coated with oil, which sets the paint and prevents it from rubbing off. It is probable that most of the fireplace in the State can be thus utilized. For a whitewash, mix flour with glue dissolved in water; to this mixture add the white clay. Wash does not rub off, Where clay forms a large proportion of some of the iron rocks of the tertiary as in some parts of Bastrop and other counties, ochres often result, yellow, red and brown of various shades. All these can be utilized in painting houses, agricultural implements, etc., etc.

Such are the minerals and mineral products of the State known to the survey, a large portion of which now lie dormant, waiting for capital and labor to move then. It is an inviting field, a rich field, which will give large fortunes to prudent, enterprising, industrious men.

MINERAL SPRINGS.

Chalybeate springs are common in the iron region of the tertiary-so common that they attract little or no attention.

At Lampasas, in Lampasas county, are some of the finest sulphur springs in the world. On one side of the town are two or three large bold springs of white sulphur water, so strong that the rocks overflowed are coated white. Another large spring is in the northeastern part of the

 

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town. This, at time of our last visit, in October, 1874,. was less strongly impregnated with sulphur than the large one in the southwest part of the town. It is said that these springs, which are more than one mile apart, alternate in strength-when one has strong sulphur water, the other is weaker, and vice versa. Large supplies of water are at both places, for bathing, etc., and bath-houses for both ladies and gentlemen are there. Lampasas, with its clear waters, both fresh and mineral, its beautiful shade trees, elms, liveoaks, etc., river, hills, and varied scenery, is a delightful place of resort.

OTHER SULPHUR SPRINGS

are in Hopkins, Grimes, Rusk and other counties, all of which have their visitors, but not having seen these springs. I can only allude to them.

GEOLOGY

-TERTIARY.

The lime between the oldest tertiary (eocene) and the middle tertiary (miocene), has not been clearly defined. Southward we know that Bastrop county belongs to the eocene, and also that a large portion of Washington county is probably miocene. In this county, no fossils of the eocene have been found, excepting in its northeastern portion. The rocks of Bastrop county are mostly sandstones, a large portion of which are highly charged with iron. Some of these, having little sand and much clay, make good ochres, and these are not uncommon in some of the hills west of the Colorado river, not far from the old residence of Judge Eastland. These ochres are in quantities enough to be of commercial value.

Robertson county, and the other tertiary counties north of it, belong to the eocene. The prevailing rocks are sandstones; many of them have a large per cent. of iron, often gradually passing into iron ores of good quality. A buff sandstone, containing a small per cent. of lime, extends from the northern part of Bastrop county through Burleson into the eastern part of Milam; is occasionally met in Robertson and also in Cherokee, passing eastward into Nacogdoches, and northward into Rusk county. It has a thickness of from four to about eight feet, varies in hardness, generally being rather soft and friable, abounds in fossil

 

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shells sometimes to such an extent as to be useful as a marl or fertilizer, as is seen on some hills near Col. Durant's, near Centreville, in Leon county. This rock is also in the hills of the petroleum region, near Melrose, in Nacogdoches, and is there by many, erroneously, supposed to belong exclusively to the oil-bearing rocks.

The rocks of the older tertiary are sedimentary deposits, including also the iron ores which often lie in beds or concretions in clays and sands. The deepest wells at their greatest depth generally have sands or friable sandrock, from which the water flows.

The following section is on the railroad cut east of and near Mineola, on the Texas Pacific railroad, in the northern part of Smith county:

This is not permanent; sometimes hard light clay and again a compact light jointed clay takes its place. Sometimes concretionary iron ores abound in these clays, which, however, are not strong clays, sand largely predominating.

The town well at Mineola, thirty feet deep, is through a mixed soil, varying from a yellowish light gray to a dark brown. Water abundant, but strongly mineralized with soda, copperas, alum and magnesia-hence little used.

There is a large spring of excellent water at the edge of the town, besides most of the other wells in the neighborhood out of town have good water, showing the formation in which the town well is sunk is not extensive.

Most of the wells south of this in the tertiary as far south as Robertson county, and including that county, also pass through sands and clay, or alternating with sandrocks and iron ores-the sands and clays generally so hard that the wells do not need curbing, the water being found at a depth of from fifteen to ninety or more feet, most wells being from twenty to thirty feet deep. Many of them pass through coal beds. Where the coal is not charged with sulphur, alum, etc., the water is good, as is exemplified in the wells at Head's Prairie, in Limestone county.

 

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As before said, the strata are nearly horizontal, the inclinations being no more than can be accounted for from depositions being made on inclined surfaces in the water or elsewhere. No suns of igneous forces, from the fires of the interior of the earth, are known in the tertiary rocks of Texas, as far as the survey has extended. Some of the iron ores, on account of their smooth, shining surfaces, bright colors and blistered appearances, are supposed by many to have been once melted, but this is not so; they are aqueous depositions.

Many years ago, I visited the. iron mines at Salisbury. Connecticut, which were worked during the last century, more than one hundred years ago. I was told that in wet places, at the foot of hills, the earth which had been once worked over, then again yielded a fresh supply of ore, affording some beautiful specimens of haematites, showing all the colors of the rainbow, some of them looking as if they had been melted: but they were mere aqueous deposits, in sands and clays. In the same manner iron ores are now being made in some of the tertiary of Texas. The work is not finished; nature still keeps her chemical and attractive forces busily employed.

During Gov. Throckmorton's administration, in the eastern part of Milam county, about five miles from the Brazos, I obtained the following section of the well of Mr. Caleb Pendaris:

 

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A conglomerate on the hills near, contains water-worn cretaceous fossils, exogyra, gryphea, etc. The cretaceous rocks are but a few miles to the west and north.

Fossil wood abounds on many of the hills, and also in the valleys of the tertiary region. In the southwest corner of Burleson county, near the Washington county line, and probably extending into that county, in the summer of 1860, I saw many prostrate petrified trees lying on the surface. The petrifaction was done after the trees had fallen and been broken in many places. I measured one of these, which extended along the ground upwards of fifty feet, and had a body nearly two feet in diameter. In the bank of a ravine, in Fayette county, I measured a fossil stump which is six feet in diameter, and six feet four inches long. It is on Indian creek, twenty-five feet beneath the top of the bank, not far from the stage road between LaGrange and Bastrop, and half a mile above Mr. McDowel's, in Fayette county. This is probably much larger than any trees now growing in that neighborhood. This tree, when alive, was larger than it is now without its bark and a portion of the outer wood, and proves that trees, a long time ago in that portion of the State, were fully equal, and perhaps greater in size than at present. The tree is exogenous, and in the eocene not far from a coal bed.

Petrified wood also abounds throughout a large portion of the cretaceous of the State.

Many instances are told of wood having been petrified after it had been cut and used. The foundation blocks of a school house in Harrison county are said to be petrified. The dead part of a growing tree is said to have turned to stone. It may be so, but I have seen no positive examples of petrifactions having been made during the last twenty-five years.

In. the northwestern part of Grayson county, and the southeastern portion of Cook, extending north to the Red River, is a tertiary which may be miocene, or the middle tertiary. It is in what is called the upper cross-timbers, the country there being timbered with oaks, elms and other trees; post-oaks constituting about three-fourths of the trees. Here are sandstones, iron ores and brown coals.

On Hickory creek, in Cook county, about ten miles northwest of Whitesboro, is an iron sandstone of various shades of reddish brown, which extends along the creek several miles. It is abundant, and makes a very fine building stone, being used for chimneys in Whitesboro and other places.

 

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This tertiary probably extends as far south as Dallas, west of which is a narrow belt of the cross-timbers in which are sandrocks, coal and iron ores, containing a small per cent. of iron. Not having found any- fossils there, the matter is left in doubt.

However, at and near Whitesboro, tertiary shells are abundant; ostreas, pectine, and many gasteropods in both the sandstones and limestones of that region, all of which are quite easily broken. The tertiary at Whitesboro is 12 to 14 miles wide, extending westward to the cretaceous, three miles east of Gainesville.

There is probably another tertiary region in the lower cross-timbers, which have trees similar to those of the upper cross-timbers.

The eastern boundary of the cretaceous, in Montague county, is near the foot of the Gordon mountains, which are also cretaceous. These mountains are about eight miles south of the Red River.

Westward from there, to the distance of twelve or more miles, is a sandy region with a few sandstone hills, some rocks colored to reddish brown with iron, and others light gray, compact and hard, resembling limestones in the distance. Did not succeed in finding any fossils in these hills, which extend southward as far as the town of Montague. In the cross-timbers, which are south of this, and also southwest to the southwest corner of Montague county are sandstones and iron rocks, much resembling the tertiary. These are seen near Judge Marlett's, in the southwest corner of Montague, near which is also the carboniferous.

A few miles west of the Gordon mountains, a well, sixty feet deep, was dug last summer, passing through hard, compact, sandy clays of a light gray and brown color, so compact as not to need curbing. No fossils there, and water food and abundant. From what Judge Marlett told me, it is probable that the upper and lower cross-timbers meet in the county of Denton. If so, there was a forked arm of an inland sea in the northern part of the State, after the upheaval of the cretaceous, and during the formation of the tertiary.

Of the newer tertiaries, in the southern part of the State, we have very few fossils.

In Washington county, near the Brazos, are bluffs and hills of hard siliceous limestones and sandstones, some of

 

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which are good for building purposes. Extending westward, at LaGrange, in Fayette county, the same kinds of rocks are seen in bluffs. In these rocks we have been able to find but few fossils, the only instance being in 1861, when I found a few of a bivalve (meretrix) in a sandstone on the banks of a small stream, near the centre of Washington county.

Near Independence, in the same county, is a white sandrock of great hardness, which is used for building in the town. It contains a few fossil leaves similar in outline and venation to those of the live oak, now growing in that region.

Along the southern border of Yegua are extensive beds of a clay, forming bluffs, so white as to resemble chalk hills. It is, however, nearly destitute of lime, being a silicate of alumina, and very similar in its composition to the white clay of the so-called chalk bluffs in Hickman county, Kentucky, on the banks of the Mississippi river. It is also similar in its composition to a white aluminous earth in Missouri, below Cape Girardeau, which is also on the Mississippi, from which a self-glazing and very beautiful ware is made.

The following is an analysis of the Yegua clays:

The large proportion of lime and alumina in these clays indicate that they may be liable to fuse at a very high temperature. This may be possibly remedied by mixing a larger proportion of siliceous material with them, and by regulating the temperature with great caution during the process of glazing.

Similar deposits to those of the Yegua are east of the Brazos, in Brazos county, and they also extend southwestward. to Gonzales and Guadalupe counties, where are very large deposits of them, sufficiently large to supply the world with good porcelain, should experiments prove them suitable for that purpose. It is probable that they will thus be utilized, and, if so, rendered very valuable.

At Damon's mound, near the northwest corner of Brazoria county, in the southern part of the State, there is a

 

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large deposit of carbonate of lime, abounding in beautiful crystals of calcite, and also of aragonite. The hound is several hundred feet long and about thirty feet high, large enough to afford a supply of lime to the inhabitants of that region. Westward, in Live Oak county, near the county seat, I saw a similar formation along the banks of streams. It is also said to be at other places on a line between these two localities, forming a low ridge about fifty miles from the coast. All south of this ridge is probably post tertiary.

In the northeastern part of the State the tertiary extends westward nearly to Clarksville, in Red River county, with similar rocks, ores and soils to those already described as being in the counties south as far as Robertson county.

The eocene of Texas, as seen in the counties of Bastrop, Robertson, Leon, and thence along the eastern border of the cretaceous, northward to Red River county, belongs mostly to the lower eocene, as seen at Claiborne, Alabama, and in Clark county, west of Claiborne. The species of fossil shells common in Texas, especially in Bastrop county, on the banks of the Colorado, near Mrs. Gazeley's, are ostrea sachformis, pecten Lyelli, astarti Conradii, cordita planicosta, turritella carinata. Here we have some which are also found in Mississippi-urtica, voluta, dumosa, and several gasteropods, as yet unknown to me. Many years ago I made large collections of fossil shells at Claiborne, Alabama, and also in Clark county of that State, about the time I obtained the Zeuglodon skeleton, noticed in Lyell's Elementary Geology, and also described by me at that time in several articles published in Silliman's Journal. I have often recognized the similarity of the Texas eocene fossils to many of those common at Claiborne, Alabama.

In Washington county, at a depth of from sixteen to thirty-five feet, in digging wells, a marl strata is met containing bones, mostly of small animals, teeth the most common. About two years ago, at the request of Dr. Leidy, of Philadelphia, I sent a portion of them to him, he promising to return ahem, which will probably soon be done, with their correct names.

Near Hidalgo Falls, on the Brazos river, in the same county, in the banks of the stream, bones of the mastodon, mammoth and other large quadrupeds were found about fifteen years ago in great abundance. A large collection of

 

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these was made by Doctors Rucker and LeGrand, of the town of Washington, in that county.

It is said chat the collection of Dr. Rucker was partly destroyed by fire a few years ago. Many years ago, the skeleton, nearly entire, of a mastodon was obtained in the banks of the Brazos, near San Felipe. This was taken to New Orleans and burned during a fire in that city. Mr. Delany, of the House of Representatives, informs me that an unusually large tooth of the mastodon belongs to a marl at Columbus, in Colorado county.

Mr. Roesler stated a few years ago that he had discovered a new species of the mastodon in the northern part of the State. A report of the discovery was published in the Texas Almanac a few years ago. This is a mistake; no new species of mastodon has been found in Texas.

CRETACEOUS.

The cretaceous rocks of Texas are mostly included in the following boundaries : beginning a few miles south of Austin, they extend northeast, not far from the eastern boundary of the counties of Milam, Navarro, and on northwestward to the Red River, passing through Red River county a little east of Clarksville, thence westward to the western part of Grayson and the upper cross-timbers, beyond which it includes a large portion of Cook, Wise and Parker counties; also most of Palo Pinto, Erath, Comanche. Hamilton and Coryell; the eastern part of Barnet; nearly all of Blanco; the southern part of Gillespie, south to San Antonio; thence eastward through Corral county to Austin. All the counties included in these lines are mostly cretaceous and most of their rocks are limestones, more or less fossiliferous. They were formed in sections of greater or less depth, as is shown by the sea shells imbedded in them. Their strata are mostly horizontal, or but slightly inclined, being the result of a gradual formation, largely made by shells great and small and coraline insects. Hence, throughout most of these counties, it is in vain to look for coal, or for gold, or silver in their fossiliferous limestones.

At Comanche Peak, in Johnson county, in the northern part of this State, and about one mile from the Brazos river, there is a fine display of cretaceous rocks. This "peak" is about six hundred feet high, above the bed of the Brazos river, and is a flat topped mountain, about one

 

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mile and a half long. and one-fourth of a mile wide. A portion of the hill, about two hundred yards long, is separated from the southern part by a gap about fifty rods wide, and its bottom about one hundred and thirty feet below the summit. The upper part of this northern portion, to the depth of about one hundred and fifteen feet, is composed chiefly of a white hippurite limestone, beneath which there is a bend of gray limestone, intercalated with strata extending about seventy rods west, which forms a lowes carpment containing great quantities of exogyra Texana, Holaster simplex, lima Wacoensis and others, to the depth of about thirty feet. Beneath this are massive beds, composed in many places almost entirely of the shells of gryphea pitcheri and exogyra Texana. These beds are about seventy-five feet thick. At the southern extremity of the peak, the gryphite beds are about two hundred feet thick, the specimens of gryphea pitcheri becoming scarcer -in the ascending series, and rare at the top of the beds; the upper portion also containing exogyra Texana, janira oceidentalis, lima Wacoensis, toxaster, Holaster simplex, etc., in small quantities. Above the gryphite bed are massive limestone strata abounding in hippurites, caprotina, etc.

The cretaceous rocks contain phosphates and other ingredients found in marls, which are used by agriculturists as fertilizers on barren soils, or soils which are little productive in the old settled and less favored States. In the cretaceous region of Texas these expensive methods of improving the soil will not have to be made, at least in the present age.

The account of Comanche Peak is copied from my report of 1866, and is what Roesler had published as his own in in the Vienna Journal, before alluded to in the history of the survey.

The gryphite bed of Comanche Peak extends northward through Parker county to the carboniferous ten to twelve miles north of Weatherford. In a northeast direction, through Wise county, the cretaceous extends to the valley of the Red River, north of Gainesville, in Cook county. This gryphite bed is five to six feet thick on the Clear Fork of the Trinity, about twelve miles east of Weatherford, near the road to Fort Worth; bed composed almost entirely of this one species of shell in a great state of preservation, the rock nothing but shells, not very strongly cemented together. This is well shown at a little water-fall near Mr.

 

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C. W. Ligar's. Below the gryphite bed is a limestone four to five feet thick, containing ammonites and other shells. and below this a sandrock base not seen. This sandrock is yellowish white, destitute of fossils, and so soft that it can be easily worked. It much resembles, lithologically, the St. Peter's sandstone as seen in the banks of the Mississippi, near St. Paul, in Minnesota. This Texas sandrock is more useful than any other in Tarrant, Parker, Wise and Cook counties, in all of which it underlies limestone and gives rise to springs and streams of clear good water. When wells reach it, water is obtained in plentiful quantities.

About twelve miles northeast of Weatherford I saw thirty feet of this sandstone exposed in the bluff of a ravine, the base of the rock not being seen, nor is its thickness known, because wells go no deeper than the top of it, and it forms the base of many ravines. Above the thirty feet of sandstone lies more than one hundred feet of hard fossiliferous cretaceous limestones. This sandrock may be older than the cretaceous which overlies it.

At Fort Worth, I met with Dr. Tan Zandt, of that place, who had previously addressed me a letter, asking advice in regard to boring an artesian well at that place.

An artesian well was recently bored to the depth of 450 feet about nine miles southeast of that town, the first fifty being an open well five feet across. "Water in abundance was found in sand, the water rising rapidly about 425 feet, at which place there was a bed of ground five feet deep, through which the water escaped. Then a square box tube was put into the drill (seven inches in diameter), and the earth thrown into the well around. Then the water rose to within twelve feet of the top, and now the water fluctuates from this to a point six to eight feet lower." He adds, "the water was found, after passing through a stratum of hard limestone, composed largely of shells." He also states that about twelve miles up the West Fork of the the Trinity from Fort Worth, there is just such an arrangement of the strata as was passed through at the well, the sand below giving an abundance of pure soft water. This soft sand rock at Fort Worth, which is overlaid there by 400 or 500 feet of cretaceous limestones, is probably the same as the soft sandstone giving springs and streams to Parker and other counties.

North of Gainesville, in Cook county, this sandstone gives rise to some fine springs. It is so porous that water

 

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percolates freely through it. It is highly important for the people of these counties to know of this arrangement of the rocks of that part of the State, as a direction to them in obtaining a supply of pure water.

In the southern portion of the cretaceous are some of the finest and largest springs in the world-large enough to give ample water power for machinery, and rise to rivers and large streams. Such are Barton's Springs, near Austin, the springs near San Marcos, those at and near New Braunfels, and also above San Antonio, near the town. These springs are the uprisings of underground streams, which do not extend any farther north than the azoic region of the southern part of Llano and Mason counties, and probably not as far.

The greatest thickness of the cretaceous strata of the State is not probably less than 1500 feet.

The artesian well on the Capitol grounds at Austin was bored to the depth of 1160 feet, all in the cretaceous, at which depth the shaft used in boring broke, and is still in the well. An appropriation of $5000 or more, was made three or four years ago to defray the expense of extracting the shaft, and sinking the well deeper. The money was expended and the shaft is still in the well. It would have been much better to have bored in a new place.

At Mount Bonel, about three miles northwest of Austin, there is a fine exposure of cretaceous strata to the height of about 500 feet above the Colorado, which flows at its base. On the opposite side of the mountain there are several terraces, and also in the adjacent hills these ancient sea. beaches are seen. At the base of some of the terraces of the mountains, farther westward, are heaps of shells, old oysters, etc., as well preserved as if they had been recently left by the retiring waters.

From the top of Mount Bonel is one of the finest views in this or any other country. The rapids of the river as it comes from the mountains several miles above, its tranquil flow at the base of the precipitous side of the mountain, and downward course to Austin, mountains to the west and northwest, prairie and farms and farm-houses in the opposite direction, and Austin far below in the distance-all form a succession of the most beautiful landscapes.

The cretaceous region abounds in fine scenery made by its mountains, rocks, streams and valleys, to which are added fertile soils, a delightful climate, plenty of good

 

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water and healthful breezes. These combine to make it one of the best countries in the world to easily and cheaply make pleasant homes.

TRAP ROCKS.

Eight or ten miles southwest of Austin there is a hill mostly composed of these rocks, several hundred feet high. It is called Pilot Knob. Some of the specimens of the rocks have a tendency towards the three-sided form, peculiar to many of the trap rocks of Connecticut and New York. Pilot Knob is surrounded with cretaceous rocks, but the base of the mountain and its junction with the cretaceous is covered with loose soil so as to prevent its being seen-- hence I cannot tell whether the knob was erupted before the cretaceous or not.

In Rockwall county, there are several dikes of trap rock, about four inches thick, which, from their jointed appearance, have been thought by many to be artificial walls of the olden time. For a more particular account of these, see Prof. Burleson's report.

These rocks are of igneous origin, and often assume, to a more or less extent, a crystalline form, as is seen in the palisade rocks on the Hudson, above New York, the Giants Causeway, in the north of Ireland, and other places, these forms causing many to suppose them fashioned, made by men.

CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD.

The boundaries of this period, as far as known, have been given in the notice of the coals of that formation. Its rocks are limestones, alternating with sandrocks, clays and shales. The limestones are generally harder than those of the cretaceous, and of a darker color-light blue or dark gray. In the northern part of the State, their strata are nearly horizontal, and, when inclined, the inclinations can be indicated by small angles.

Overtopping the whole, on the hills and mountains of that section, is a conglomerate, of from five to twenty feet in thickness, composed, in its northern and northwestern locations, of large rounded and angular fragments of quartzose rocks of various shades of color; also, granites and other igneous rocks. Such pebbles are scattered over the low hills, and in some of the valleys of that region. Farther south, the pebbles of the conglomerate are smaller, as

 

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seen in Lampasas, Brown and San Saba counties. At the close of the carboniferous era, all of that formation was overspread by a thick deposit of sand and gravel, destroying all its animal and vegetable life. This conglomerate, or concrete as it may be aptly termed, varies very much in hardness, in some places crumbling to pieces when struck with the hammer, and in others being hard and difficult to break.

Some of these last would make good building rocks. The section of the salt well at Graham, in Young county, shows two conglomerates, but this does not convey a correct representation of the strata of that region; because this salt valley was formerly much deeper than now, and has been filled by the crumbling of the mountains around, and at the base of one of these is the salt well.

A fusilina limestone overlies the coal of Young county, and extends as far south as Brown and Lampasas counties. I saw specimens of it a few miles west of Brownwood, the county seat of Brown county, and also in limestone rocks in the bed of Lampasas river, at Lampasas Springs. The old carboniferous species of shells dwelt in groups to a considerable extent; in some places, Productus Rogersii were seen in multitudes; in others, Athyris subtilata, etc. Spirifer cameratus abounds in the carboniferous rocks at Marble Falls on the Colorado river, in Burnet county. Below these falls, in rocky crevices, are large lumps of coal, which have probably been brought down from strata up stream.

These falls are a succession of rapids over the up-tilted carboniferous strata, extending from the upper fall down stream about three-fourths of a mile to a bend in the river, where it turns southward among the mountains. The fall, in this distance, is twenty-six feet, as determined by Mr. Simpson of the survey. The carboniferous limestones here dip at an angle of about forty-five degrees, having been upheaved by the elevation of the neighboring granite, seen about one mile distant, and extending probably beneath the carboniferous rocks.

At the tipper portion of the falls is a dark shale ten feet thick, having in its upper part, numerous fucoidal plants, resembling somewhat the Fucoides canda-galli of Mr. Vanuxem, figured in his Geological Report of New York, and also again by Prof. Hall, who calls it Sphirophyton canda-galli. Lastly, similar plants are figured and described

 

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by Leo Lesquereux, under the generic name of Caulerpes. The greater portion of the Texas plants are much larger than those alluded to above, some of them. being at least two feet in length, with stems extending but little above the base of the fronds, which were very delicate and beautiful, with curved outlines, sometimes to one side, and again drooping to both. sides like the weeping willow. Here there were two and perhaps three species, stems being but rarely seen. Previous to finding these, I had seen the same things in the same shale formation of the carboniferous on Wallace creek, in San Saba county, where the plant stems are more distinctly seen.

The ferns and calamites of Young and other counties' in the northern part of the State belong mostly to the upper coal measures, and the rocks further south in San Saba. and Burnet counties are in the lower carboniferous, a portion of them probably belonging to the sub-carboniferous period.

JURASSIC.

About half a mile west and north-west of Phantom Hill, in the bluffs of the west side of the Clear Fork of the Brazos, I found what may be fossils of the Jurassic period, in hard Iimestones, so hard as to render it difficult to obtain well defined fossils. Intending to make a more careful study of these, I placed them in a box and shipped them to Austin, since which I have not seen them.

Eight or ten miles east of Phantom Hill, in the limestones on the bank of a ravine, I found undoubted carboniferous fossils, Productus Rogersii, Allorisma subcuneata, etc. Thus finding these has caused me to doubt whether the rocks, west of Phantom Hill are truly Jurassic.

Southeast of Phantom Hill, in Callahan county, is some: of the finest scenery in the State, on the head waters of Pecan bayou and Hubbard's creek. It is a prairie land of mountains and valleys, large springs, clear streams, and steep, rocky bluffs of mountains and valleys. On these hills, covered with grass made luxuriant by recent rains, we saw buffalo for the last time, six to eight being in a herd and all or nearly all old bulls. In Haskell county, we had seen herds of a thousand or more, bulls, cows and calves. Of these we had killed enough to keep well supplied with fresh meat. This Callahan county will ere long make good homes for many families. To return to the buffalo of Haskell

 

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and Jones counties, where they were feeding in September in large droves, General McKenzie and his soldiers had passed through Haskell county onwards toward the Double Mountain. Numerous buffaloes were dead along the route taken by the soldiers, many of which had proba- bly been shot and ran away to die after the army had passed far onward. It is very easy to shoot and hit a buffalo, but difficult to hit him in a vital part, so as to cause hint to drop and die. Such was our experience. At this season, the hides are of no value, not having any long hair excepting on the neck and shoulders; nor are the hides good until in December and January. Old buffaloes, especially the old bulls, delight to roll and wallow in the soft dirt. I have seen them roll and kick - tip their heels over and over, and then get up and shake themselves, apparently with great satisfaction. It will not be many years before Northwest Texas will be resorted to by crowds of Northern invalids, for the purpose of breathing its pure air, to behold its charming landscapes, and hunt and fish; hunt the buffalo, the antelope, the deer, wild turkeys, etc., and catch thousands of fish. Such pastimes will kindle the spark of life anew, and give new life to the body. With a climate like that of New Mexico, this portion of Texas offers superior advantages to those suffering front lung complaints. At present, there are no hotels and but few families living in the buffalo country.

DEVONIAN.

In 1860, when engaged with Dr. Shumard in the survey of San Saba county, some of the limestones and shales in the eastern part of that county, and the northwestern part of Burnet, were referred by him to the Devonian. The Trenton limestone w as the formation recognized, its chief fossils found were of the following genera: Belerophon, very common, . Maclurea, orthis, Murchisonia, pleurotomaria. and some other genera peculiar to that period. Since then I have not re-visited that portion of these counties, the whole of which needs a re-examination.

LOWER SILURIAN.

The calciferous sandrock, magnesian limestone, and Potsdam sandstone, all belonging to the Potsdam series of

 

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rocks; these are all well developed in Burnet, Llano, and the southeastern part of San Saba. The calciferous sand-rocks and magnesian limestones consist of siliceous and magnesian limestones, alternating in strata. In many places, large tabular blocks, two or more feet thick, of these limestones abound, suitable for first class building; rocks, many of them being good marbles. They are white and dark gray, with intermediate shades. The upper strata are sometimes cherty, and in some few places they contain large crystals of rhomb spar, twelve to eighteen inches in diameter. They have but few fossils of the genera ophileta, holopea, orthocera and bathyrus. The surface of the country, wherever they form the uppermost layers, is very rough, with large and small masses of rock in great confusion, being of little or no value for agricultural purposes, except for pasturage. The cherty rocks are often filled with irregular holes, coated with drossy quartz, many of them having the iron rusty appearance of some of the gold-bearing quartz of California.

In Llano county, at and near the Packsaddle Mountain, the Potsdam strata lies unconformably upon the azoic rocks, in either horizontal strata, or in layers inclined at small ankles. Near Honey creek, and also near the head waters of the Little Llano, it can be seen directly overlying the azoic metamorphic rocks. It consists of red, yellowish white and gray sandstones in strata, alternating often with gray limestones of different shades, some of which are nearly white. In Llano county, its fossils are more abundant than in either Burnet, Mason or San Saba counties. Its recognized characteristic fossils are of the following genera : Lingula, bathyrus, conocephalus, dicellocephalus, agnostus, arionellus, discena and others, many of which are undetermined. There is a fine exposure of these rocks at the Packsaddle Mountain, at the west end of which the following section was taken by the writer:

 

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Numbers three and six are hard, compact, siliceous limestones, highly fossiliferous, tinged with green spots-silicate of lime. This section is interesting on account of the great similarity in lithological character, and the imbedded fossils of the two sections, numbers three and six, with two hundred and four feet of limestone intervening, which shows that a long period of time must have elapsed between the periods of their deposition.

The above section was made in the Spring of 1861. Last October I was there again, and in the bed of Honey creek, at the base of the mountain, is an uptilted shale, its strata being nearly upturned to the perpendicular, having evidently been thus displaced by the eruption of the granite. I shall allude to this shale again under the laurentian. Packsaddle Mountain is about 1600 feet high above the gulf, according to a measurement which I made with the barometer in 1861. It is the highest mountain in Llano county.

At but one locality have I seen the Potsdam dipping at a large angle. This is near the head waters of the Little Llano river, where the broken and upturned strata dip at an angle of about forty degrees west, ten degrees south, where I measured the following section:

No. 4 of this section has evidently been altered by heat. Its compact layers, of a foot or more in thickness, are cleavable into plates, an inch or less in thickness. On the faces of these plates are rarely faint traces of fossils, the chief of which is a dicellocephalus, mixed with nodular concretions, of from four to six inches in diameter, which are probably organisms altered by heat. Several specimens of the dicellocephalus were found in a state of perfection, sufficient to identify them.

This section is on the borders of the Potsdam, with the granites and metamorphic rocks southward of it, but here there has been an eruption of granites, long after the upheaval

 

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of the oldest granites of the azoic. This last upheaval has raised and altered by heat the older Potsdam rocks above. At the top of this are a few acres comparatively level, back of which are the high hills of San Saba county, rough with calciferous sandrock, alternating with magnesian limerock or marble, the whole often capped with rocks of a later age.

This is a very interesting locality, for we here have some chapters in the remote history of the earth, written by the Creator on tables of stone. They tell of the existence of delicately formed animals in tranquil seas, where they lived and died, and were buried in layers of sand which finally became indurated into solid rock. After this, in a shallow sea, a limestone was gradually formed from age to age, to the depth of about one hundred feet. Then came the eruption of the later granite, breaking, upheaving and heating the rocks above. Quiet again reigned, the granite became cool and solid, but the waves still rolled above, and other limestones began to form, in the slow process of which many, very many other ages passed; how long, none can tell, only that it must have been very long, because the limestones above our section are several hundred feet thick, extending back in nearly horizontal layers, containing shell and other marine exuvia, far into San Saba county.

At this place, horizontal beds of conglomerate, formed from the paleozoic rocks lie along, facing the cliffs. These conglomerates have been much worn away, and now stand in some places in long, tabular forms or rounded pillars. In the caves and crevices of the limestone cliffs of this neighborhood, nitrate of potash, or salpetre, is very abundant, sufficiently so to make it of economic value. See Saltpetre elsewhere.

Farther west, in the upper part of the Llano valley, some of the Potsdam sandstones are highly ferruginous, containing a large per cent. of iron. Nodules of iron are derived from those rocks, some of which have imbedded shells, which are also changed into iron, are of frequent occurence, scattered over the surface in the vicinity of these sandstones. At one place, near the military road, a few miles north of Fort Mason, there is a bed of iron in these rocks, nearly two hundred feet thick. These dark red sandstones are in massive layers of nearly horizontal- strata, resting immediately upon the granite. In some places they contain lingula in great abundance.

 

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LAURENTIAN.

Beneath the Potsdam, which rests unconformably upon it, is a dark blue shale in strata, upraised at various angles, large and small; lithologically, it resembles some of the old slates of Vermont and New Hampshire, and also, of the mountains of North Carolina, in the granite regions of those States. No fossils have been found in these Texas shales. In the bed and banks of Honey creek, near the base of Packsaddle Mountain, it is an argillite, or roofing slate, with two cleavage directions. About four miles west of the town of Llano, in the bed of a stream, these two cleavages are well shown in the uptilted strata, extending from bank to bank, and the slate is changed into a light gray mica slate. All the gradations of such changes can be seen in Llano county, sometimes the slate being changed into a gneissoid rock, with the vertical cleavages distinctly placed, forming large slabs. Friable mica slates, containing garnets, sometimes underlie the granite. All the azoic metamorphic rocks are altered slates, which may, and, -probably did, contain life, the traces of which have been effaced by heat and chemical changes. It is possible that some of the less altered slates may have fossils, for, as yet, but a curs-ory examination has been made of them.

AZOIC GRANITE AND OTHER CRYSTALLINE ROCKS.

These have already been incidentally noticed, which leaves but little to say respecting them. As already stated, their time of upheaval has been at different periods. Most, and probably all of the granites of the azoic region, are of a later period than the metamorphic rocks associated with them. The granite is occasionally traversed by veins of white quartz, associated with feldspar. Fine crystals of tourma-line, black, white and brown, are found on the sides and tops of some of the mountains in loose masses of quartz, and also in the granite. Amethystine quartz is in some of the mountains of Burnet county. Kyanite and other forms of asbestos are also in the granite region. Epidote both massive and crystalized is quite common; some of its massive, green forms have been mistaken by the inexperienced for copper ore. Garnets, large and small, are in some of the metamorphic rocks. In many of them, an impure gryphite abounds, as seen in the beds of many of the

 

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mountain streams. A porphyritic granite forms a large portion of the mountains in the northern part of Llano county, extending eastward from Baby Head Mountain to the copper veins near the head waters of the Little Llano river. Near these copper veins are hornblende slates in strata, uptilted like the other metamorphic rocks.

I have thus briefly described the principal geological for- mations of the State, which are known to the survey, not describing so much for the scientist, as for the practical men of the State who wish to gain a knowledge of its rocks, soils and minerals.

Specimens of those are in the State cabinet, where they can be seen and studied by every body who wishes to do so.

Some may be disappointed that I have not given a more favorable account of our mineral resources, especially of silver and lead, and perhaps, copper. I have seen no rich silver or lead mines in Llano county, although I searched diligently there during one week last October, guided by several of the most intelligent men of that county, men well acquainted with its known mineral resources. Exag- gerated statements of mineral wealth do more harm than good to a State or country, because a reaction always comes sooner or later, when the truth becomes known. Texas, in reality, is rich enough in mineral wealth; there is no ne- cessity of resorting to misrepresentation.

AGRICULTURAL REPORT

The area of square miles in Texas is 274,356, an area larger than all New England, with New York, Pennsylva- nia, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and East and Nest Virginia added. Yes, Texas is larger than all these old States, which now have such a vast amount of people and wealth as to be more than sufficient to make a power- ful empire. To bring the comparison nearer home, Texas is larger than the States of Georgia, Florida, Albama, Mis- sissippi and Louisiana united, the entire area of all these old, rich cotton states lying upon the Gulf of Mexico being but 257,492 square miles.

It is only by making these comparisons that we can well comprehend the great extent of the State of Texas, and its capacity for supporting a large and wealthy population of many millions; for Texas is larger than France or Great Britain.

 

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The truth of the matter is, Texas is so large and has such a variety of soil and climate, that people of all tastes, dis- positions and degrees of intelligence can find suitable homes for themselves in some part of the State. Tastes differ what pleases one will often displease another; and what will satisfy one, will disgust another. It is well it is so, because it scatters the people broadly over the land. Some people with roving natures are never suited with any country. I have seen some who have been with their fami- lies from Texas to California, with wagons on the overland route, and back to Texas, and again to California., and again back to Texas. One family had been back and forth three times, and was then in an unsettled condition.

CLIMATE.

Texas has a varied climate-froth moderately temperate to semi-tropical. In the northern part snow and ice, and some extreme cold days come in the winter, but the cold is not constant, and the larger portion of the time the weather is warm and pleasant; hence, but little fodder and shelter is needed for stock.

In the Central portion, snow and ice are seldom seen, and in the extreme south, at Brownsville, rarely, if ever. Climate has a marked and great influence over our health and happiness. Warm, pleasant days give life and cheer- fulness; cold, stormy, rainy days, gloom and discontent, as is proved by the number of suicides being greater in Paris, London, and other large cities, during cold rains and storms.

In the Northern and Middle States the most common topic of conversation is the weather. When friends or ac- quaintances meet, the first thing generally spoken of is the weather. Then, during froze four to eight months of the year, a warm, pleasant day is of such rare occurrence as to be hailed with joy.

Not so in Texas; pleasant days are here so common that they fail to excite the attention, being expected as a mat- ter of course; hence the weather is here rarely spoken of,

A friend of mine, a graduate of west Point, had weak lungs and also a bronchial affection, to cure which he had arranged to go to the south of Europe with his family, having partly packed his trunks for the journey, when his eye fell upon a publication of mine in "The Country Gen-

 

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tleman," about the climate of Texas at Austin and west- ward. He immediately wrote to me, and the result was, he came to Texas with his family, and spent the winter at San Antonio and Austin.

When here, he told me there had been scarce a day in which he could not ride out with pleasure what a land and climate were here, they would come to Texas in crowds.

He made another remark which, although foreign to the subject, I will relate because the people of Texas have been shamefully slandered and misrepresented. Says he, "I have now been three months in Texas, and during that time I have seen less drunkenness, less fighting, quarreling, etc., than for many years I have seen each and every week in Detroit, Michigan;" and Detroit is not worse than other northern cities. This speaks well for San Antonio and Austin. His name was George Rose. He gained in flesh twenty-five pounds while here. Said he should return to live in Texas, and he was able to live in any place, for he had an income of ten thousand dollars a year. He returned to the north and died.

The rain fall at Austin averages a little more than thirty inches annually. At Fort Belknap, in Young county, it is about twenty-two inches, which is nearly the same as that reported for Kansas. In Eastern and Southern Texas it is probably about 40 inches, and in the southern part of the State 50 inches or more.

Much has been said and written of the influence of trees upon the rainfall. From experiments which have been made in France during a number of years, it is stated that where the experiments were conducted, trees gave an increase of twenty per cent. of rain. Without doubt the leaves of growing crops, cotton, corn, etc., have more or less effect upon the moisture of the atmosphere, and consequently upon the rainfall. Also, some trees drink in and send out more moisture than others. The post oak is a dry growing tree; it imbibes little and gives out but little water. Cotton wood, pecan, water oak, etc., are ex- amples of large drinkers. That growing crops increase the rainfall is proved by the greater amount of rain realized in Kansas and other States where a largely increased area has been cultivated.

I have seen many persons during the summer who ex- pressed a desire that the Legislature would pass a law to

 

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encourage tree-planting on the prairies. This has been done in most or all the prairie States, and Texas should not be behind her sisters in the march of improvement. Others want something done to punish those who set on fire the dry prairie grass, whose flames sweep along and kill trees, burn fences, stacks of grain and hay, and even houses, of which we saw a few instances.

A late writer has given a list of the States which are the most and least subject to give pulmonary or lung diseases, consumption, etc. Among the most healthy as regards these diseases, is New Mexico; Texas ranks but little less in the scale of health, and if we only take into account the western and northwestern portions of the State, these -laces will be found equally as healthy as New Mexico. It is well known that consumptives the best regain health in countries having a dry, pure atmosphere. Next bene- ficial are associations calculated to cheer and please them when riding or walking abroad. To do this, western Texas has fine scenery and roads over most of which horses can trot both summer and winter. The climate of Eastern and Southeastern Texas is too moist for the improvement of peo- ple having lung complaints, as is also the southern part of the State.

Appended is a report of the temperature and also rainfall at Austin for the past eighteen years, as kept by Professor Van Nostrand, Principal of the State Deaf and Dumb Asylum.

 

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SOILS OF THE TERTIARY

About three-fourths of the area of the counties east of the Trinity river, is composed of sand clay soils, and the remainder includes the dark alluvious of the valleys of rivers and streams, with a small proportion of dark prairie land.

CLAY SOILS

embrace by far the largest area of this country. They contain from fifty to seventy per cent. of sand or silica, and the remainder twenty-five to forty-five per cent. of clay or alumina, with a small proportion of lime and oxide of iron. The average fertile soils of the country have sixty or seventy per cent of silica; the larger proportion of sand, being the best soil, and most easily tilled. It also with- stands the drouth best, and permits the roots to go freely through it. Such a, soil, with a clay subsoil, can be easily improved by fertilizers, rotation of crops, and judicious cultivation. We were often told, when in Central and Eastern Texas last summer, of lands which had been annu- ally tilled, twenty years or more, without manure, which still bore as large crops as when first cultivated. Such soils, properly managed, may have their fertility constantly in- creased.

The red clay soils are colored by the red oxide of iron, which renders them more fertile. Such soils are common throughout the tertiary region, often being noted for their fertility. In some places the proportion of clay is greater than given above; such becoming plastic when wet, form- ing good brick, but the proportion of clay is too great to render the soil desirable for cultivation.

SANDY SOILS

are those which have from eighty to ninety per cent. of sand, and only ten to fifteen per cent. of clay, lime and a trace of iron. If such soils have a clay subsoil, and a good tillage with a moderate use of fertilizers, they yield good crops. This has been proved in the piney woods region of the Gulf of Mexico States. Lands there, which a few years ago were thought to be nearly worthless, properly tilled and manured, yield good crops of corn, cotton and sweet potatoes. Many other vegetables also grow remarkably

 

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well in such lands; hence. the piney woods lands of Eastern and Southeastern Texas will not be worthless after the tim- ber is cut off, as many imagine.

DARK PRAIRIE AND ALLUVIAL SOILS.

vary much in their composition. They owe their dark color to humus and vegetable matter, containing a greater or less proportion of carbon, derived mostly from decaying vegetable matter. When sand enters largely into their composition, they form sandy loam, which contains from sixty to ninety per cent. of sand. The better soil is, when the proportion of sand is about seventy-five per cent., fif- teen to twenty per cent. of clay, and the remainder lime, humus and oxide of iron. Such soils prevail in the prai- rie region of the tertiary of Central and Eastern Texas.

SOILS OF THE CRETACEOUS

These belong mostly to those last named, containing, however, a larger proportion of lime derived from the pre- vailing rocks of the country. When the proportion of clay and lime is large, it forms a tenacious soil hard to till, and, in wet places, it often has hogwallows. Such soils yield well, forming some of the most fertile soils of the State. Yet most persons prefer soils having more sand, and less clay and lime.

The cretaceous also has on its prairies sandy soils, well proportioned and of remarkable fertility. Such soils pre- vail in Bell, McLennan, Falls, Navarro, and all the cre- taceous counties northward to the Red river.

In some few instances, the proportion of lime is too great, the limerocks too near the surface. Then the plants can- not there stand the drouths and heats of summer, and they wither and die. Such lands can be rendered fertile by a large application of clay and sand.

The carboniferous soils embrace all the foregoing; nearly every county in this formation has every variety of soil, and of greater or less fertility. The carboniferous is em- braced in the stock region, where little attention, compara- tively, has been paid to the raising of grain, until quite re- cently, because it was generally supposed that the climate was too dry for the successful growth of corn. But the ex- perience of the last few years proves that, when the ground

 

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is plowed deep, planted early, and tilled well, average crops of corn are the result; hence, now people are turning their attention much more than formerly to the raising of corn, and the growth of small grain.

AZOIC SOILS.

Granites and their associated igneous rocks are mostly composed of silica; hence, their disintegration gives rise to sandy soils, which prevail throughout the azoic region. The older limestones are also there, or in the neighborhood, which tend to add a due proportion of lime to the soil. The feldspar of the granite also contains alumina and pot- ash or soda; hence, the soils of this region have a greater fertility than their appearance indicates.

We often read of loamy soils, clay loams and sandy loans. A sandy loam has from sixty to ninety per cent. of sand; a loamy soil, thirty to sixty per cent. of sand. A clay loam has a large proportion of clay, and only fifteen to twenty per cent. of sand. All these proportions vary constantly, often in the same field, within a few feet of each other, and they are all found to a greater or less ex- tent in Texas, being included in the preceding account of the soils of the principal geological formations.

ANALYSIS OF SOILS.

I have not as much faith in the practical value of having soils analyzed in the laboratory of the chemist, as some. Soils, distant but a few feet, may vary in their composition, or, some of the fertilizing matters in it may be in such small quantities, as to escape the notice of the chemist. But it is very important that the agriculturist shall know the na- ture of the soil which he tills, at least, its principal ingre- dients. I append a few directions, which will enable him to do this. To find the amount of sand and clay in soils, and also the moisture:

Weigh the soil and spread it on clean paper, and put it in an oven, not heated enough to discolor the paper. When dry, weigh again, and the loss in weight gives the amount of moisture.

Weigh another portion, put it in water and stir it until it is thoroughly incorporated with the water; boil it, so as to entirely divide the particles; then let it settle. The sand

 

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will first fall to the bottom, and as soon as the clay begins to settle pour off the water; dry and weigh the sand, and you have the amount of sand, which subtract from the en- tire weight, gives the amount of clay.

To obtain the amount of lime in a soil, mix 100 grains of the dry soil with half a pint of water, and add half a wine- glassful of muriatic acid; stir it thoroughly several times during the day, and let it stand and settle over night. Pour off the clear liquid in the morning, and again fill the vessel with water and stir thoroughly, and when clear again, pour it off; dry the soil and weigh it. The loss of weight is the lime it contained. An easy method of testing a soil to see whether it has much or little lime, is to pour on it a few drops of strong acid, sulphuric or muriatic. If much lime be present, there will be an active fermentation, if less lime, less fermentation, and no lime, no fermentation.

The organic matter, or vegetable mould in a soil can be ascertained by drying the soil we'll in an oven; then weigh it; then heat it to dull redness, over a lamp or bright fire, until the combustible matter is burned away and evapor- ated; then weigh, and the loss is the amount of organic matter. This organic matter contributes largely to the fer- tility of a soil.

In traveling last summer in Eastern Texas, I was aston- ished to see such large growing crops on its sandy lands, which, a few years ago, I thought to be of little value. But the experience of the few last years teaches that the upland. sandy soils, with a comparatively small percentage of clay, are the best for a varied cultivation, for fruits, small grains, etc., besides they yield good crops of corn and cotton.

Last year, (1873), many of the owners of small farms in the uplands of Robertson and other counties, made more profits than some of the owners of large plantations on the Brazos; the latter sometimes not having money enough from the sales of their crops, to pay the expenses of rais- ing them.

Soils may have the same chemical composition, yet vary in their degrees of fertility. The less fertile has large grains of sand, etc., and the most fertile has all its ingredi- ents ground fine so as to be imbibed easily by the rootlets of the growing plants; hence the great fertility of the deltas of rivers, the Nile, the Mississippi, and the alluvial. soils of our own rivers near the Gulf, depositions made from the finest particles, the coarser having been left far

 

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up stream. The soils of the Red River bottom in Northern Texas are of a similar character, depositions of the Red River and its tributaries from the far off up country. Much of the fertility of these soils is also owing to par- ticles of gypsum finely ground, also brought down from that up country.

When I was a student, I one day found large piles of light gray and slate-colored rock, with some clear izing- glass-like crystals, on the wharves. One of my studies was mineralogy, and I soon found the crystals were selenite or crystalized gypsum, and that all the rocks were gypsum from Novia Scotia, from whence they had been brought by a schooner to Middleton, Connecticut, to be ground and applied as a fertilizer to the growing crops. By the appli- cation of this and other fertilizers, a large proportion of the soils of New England have had their fertility increased, although cultivated for hundreds of years, and are now rated at from $50 to $300 per acre-soils no better by nature than some abandoned fields I saw last summer in some of the oldest settled counties of Texas.

When more railroads are made, and some of them go into the gypsum region of Northern Texas, and bring down car loads of it, to be ground and fed to the crops of corn, clover, etc., of Central and Eastern Texas, then there will be no more worn out lands, but instead an increased fertil- ity to the soil, increased value to the land, larger yields of crops, and more money for the farmer.

RED CLOVER

A Mr. Townsend, of Calvert, told me that he had some clover growing in his garden, the stems of which were nearly five feet long. Now, if clover will grow in the gar- den, it will grow in the field, and fields of it have been grown in Texas, especially in its more northern portion. I know from experience that the application of plaster of paris, or gypsum, to clover, at the rate of about one and a half bushels to the acre, increases the growth of the clover more than one-half. Land, which would not grow clover without gypsum, gave large yields of clover with gypsum. These were sandy soils. Gypsum has the power of fixing the ammonia in the soil, and of retaining its mois- ture, thereby enabling the plant to stand the drouths of summer.

 

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California clover of some, medicago satina or lucern (which is a native of Europe and highly valued there as a forage plant), also does well in Central and Eastern Texas. In the woods of the Brazos bottom, at the International Railroad bridge, near Hearne, I saw a very luxuriant growth of this plant, stems three to four feet long; so long that they had not been able to maintain an erect position.

ALSACE.

This plant has been sparingly cultivated as a forage plant in some portions of the State. I saw specimens of it grow- ing in the garden of Dr. Hunter, at Palestine, in Eastern Texas.

TEXAS GRASSES.

Texas has more native grasses, probably, than any other State in the Union, North or South. About two hundred species of native and foreign grasses have been noticed by the writer. Many of these are excellent for pasturage, and some few for hay. Of what are called the mesquite grasses, there are several species, all of which are good for stock. One of these mesquite grasses is called buffalo grass, on the western plains towards the Rocky Mountains; hence its botanical name of Buchloa,. It is dioecious, having its barren and fertile flowers on different plants. The barren stems are four to eight inches high, erect and conspicuous. They also have stolons trailing on the ground. The fertile plants also have stolons, and the seed is placed in the angles or tops of the stem near the ground. Fertile plants are not common, the grass being mostly increased by stolons. It endures the most severe drouths, its apparently dead, dried up plants being revived by rains. It forms beautiful lawns. After the rains of last September, the prairie hills and valleys, with their clumps and solitary trees of live oak, in the counties of Callahan, Coleman, Brown, San Saba and Lampasas, presented some of the finest lawns and landscapes I have ever seen. It is a delightful region, abounding in fine scenery.

The Colorado grass of Travis county grows to the height of from four to five feet, in thick clumps or tufts, like wheat, yielding sometimes, and indeed quite often, more than two tons to the acre. It is remarkably succulent and tender, making a superior hay, preferred by many horses

 

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and cattle to corn fodder. It is an annual and very fast grower, ofter springing up in cornfields after the crop is laid by, and maturing in August. The farmers of the Col- orado valley, near Austin, often get a crop of corn and one of hay from the same land in one season. Its botanical name is panicum (Erichloa) Texanum, having first been de- scribed by the writer in his preliminary report of the geo- logical survey in 1866.

There is another native grass, which also grows in the old States east of the Mississippi. It has been grown for hay by Col. J. T. Brady, of Houston, and others. It also grows to the height of from three to four feet in low rich soils, giving two or more tons to the acre of very good hay. It grows rapidly; starting in autumn, it matures in this climate in April and early in May. It took the first premium for hay at the Houston State Fair in 1873.

Dr. Lincecum has tested and cultivated on his farm, at Long Point, in Washington county, about fifty species of native grasses, specimens of which he has presented to the State collection, accompanying which was the following letter:

"From No. 1 to 17 is a duplicate suit of grasses indige- nous to Texas, which I contributed to the State cabinet sev- eral years ago. I understand, by letter from Prof. S. B. Buckley, that my first set of grass specimens have all been destroyed.

"Herewith I contribute to the State cabinet a new suit, with twenty-nine additional species of Texas grasses. These are all good, nutritious grasses, very suitable for a mixed grazing pasture for both winter and summer use. Quite a number of them are very fine spring grasses, which, with a little attention, flourish finely, and are sightly and most ex- cellent for Lay. The common broom straw, curly sedge and some other prairie species, are not included in this col- lection. Should it be necessary, I can obtain them from my meadow next summer. This meadow is stocked with all the original Texas grasses, and in the months of April, May and June, it is a good place to visit, to renew the re- collection of how Texas prairies looked thirty years ago. In it are to be found all kinds of the rich, luscious, wavy grasses, and highly painted, nodding flowers that fed the flocks of deer, antelope, and vast herds of buffalo, and freighted the balmy south wind with sweet fragrance ten thousand years previous to the time the polluted tramp of

 

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unholy civilization had defiled these once beautiful plains. The meadow contains thirty-five acres, and to those whose tastes lead them to examine unadulterated mature, it is a pleasant place, when it is blooming and casting its fragrant odors upon the air for a mental feast.

"Any one who will take the pains to enclose a plat of outlands, and to keep the stock from it three years, will find himself the owner of a similar meadow.

"GIDEON LINCECUM."

I could say much more of the Texas grasses, but time and space will not permit. It is to be hoped that the Leg- islature will make provision for a State Botanist, that we may have a correct report of the trees, grasses and plants of the State.

TREES.

There are from fourteen to sixteen species of oak in the State, some of which attain great size. One, which is called the Spanish oak, in some of the Southern States east of the Mississippi, and in others, red oak, and grows in Central and Eastern Texas, rarely extends west of the Brazos river. One of these I measured in the Brazos bottom, in the eastern part of Washington county, and found it to be more than seventeen feet in circumference, at three feet from the ground, and upwards of one hundred feet high, with a nearly uniform diameter for a about thirty feet up- ward. Its botanical name is Quercus Falcata. The bastard white oak (Quercus Durandii) is one of the toughest and most valuable oaks for timber known. It grows in the bot- tom lands of Little river, and also on the Colorado and Brazos rivers, south of Austin. It is used for making wagon wheels, and other purposes where toughness and durability are required.

We have three species of elm, three of maple, five of hickory including the pecan, two mulberries, two species of persimmon, one sycamore or button wood, three species of magnolia, two of hackberry, several willows, four species of pine, one cypress, etc., etc.

PINE.

Texas abounds in pine timber, having one of the finest pineries in the world. Most of the pine lands, indeed, nearly

 

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all which are known to the survey, are in the tertiary region. The pines extend, with occasional interruptions, from Red River county, through eastern Texas, to the Sabine. In the counties north of Nacogdoches, there are but two species-the short-leafed pine, (pines mitis,) and the old-field or loblolly pine, (pinus taeda). The first is the most abundant, being in the ratio of nearly three to one. It grows very tall, as high as 130 feet, with a diameter of from two to three feet. The old-field pine grows larger, having sometimes a diameter of five or more feet. Thee largest I have seen in Texas, had a diameter of about four feet at three feet from the ground.

Both of these pines make valuable lumber, and are used extensively for building purposes, giving a large freight business to railroads going from the eastern to the western parts of the State.

In Nacogdoches county, the long-leafed pine (pinus pa- lustris) has its northern limit in the State, from which it extends southward to the Gulf. It is also accompanied by the two former pines; but, front a few miles south of Nacog- doches, the long-leafed is the principal pine. It has a diameter of from two to four feet, rarely being more than three feet. Nearly all of the counties south of Nacog- doches, between the Trinity and Sabine rivers, abound in these pines, forming one of the largest and most valuable pineries in the world, because the long-leafed pine is the very best one known for lumber, being very resinous, hard and durable. I have seen it used for furniture and for the inside work of houses, where it makes a rich appearance when varnished. It is the principal pine used for turpen- tine, rosin, etc., in North Carolina, Florida, and elsewhere. This was formerly a very profitable business, and it may be still, and probably is. One thing is certain, the pine lands of southeastern Texas have not been valued high enough, nor will they be until railroads penetrate that region.

CYPRESS.

The swamps of that section also have some magnificent cypress trees, (tax odium distichum). In the summer of 1861, I saw a large raft of cypress timber at Orange, whose logs were sixty feet long, and none of then had a diameter of less than four feet at the top.

Several of the counties west of Austin have very large

 

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cypress trees on the banks of streams. In 1861, I measured some on Cypress creek, in Hays county, which were of the following dimensions at three feet from the ground: one nineteen feet six inches in circumference, another twenty-four feet three inches; one twenty feet four inches, and one twenty-seven feet four inches, the last being a little more than nine feet in diameter at three feet from the ground. None of these trees had the enlarged conical bases which are so prevalent in the cypress swamps of the South, but all had a nearly uniform diameter upward to the height of twenty feet or more. A cypress stump near New Braunfels, measured by Mr. Lindheimer, of that place, was seven feet in diameter at top, in 1860.

Cypress lumber is very durable. A few years ago, (1858), a house at St. John's Berkley, near the Santee river, in South Carolina, which was built in 1712, had, at the time of my visit, its verandah and its railings in a good state of preservation. This is a remarkable durability, because it was constantly exposed to the weather.

CEDAR

There are two species of cedar in Texas-the common red cedar, (juniperus Virginiana), and the mountain cedar, common on the hills north of Austin. This last is much used for fencing purposes, for posts and rails, and also for railroad ties. The timber of both these species is very durable.

In no other country have I seen such tall cedars as in Texas. Many years ago, on a Potomac steamer, below Washington, I met with a gentleman from Texas, who said that red cedar grew there more than one hundred feet high; (at the North their greatest height is only about thirty feet); that such cedars were sawed into lumber and used for building purposes, and also split into rails, etc. Not long afterward, I met Dr. Torrey, the botanist, in New York, and told him about the Texas cedars. He said the story was very improbable, and that he did not believe it. But such cedars really grow in Texas. I have seen then and measured them. I have seen seven rails cut from one, rails not less than ten feet, and some of them twelve feet long, the tree being a little more that one hundred feet long as it lay on the ground, the logs not having been removed. This was on Richland creek, in Navarro county,

 

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in 1860, where such trees were not uncommon. Capt. Love, who was causing the rails to be made, told me that he had seen cedar trees one hundred and twenty feet long. I measured one tree there which was nine feet ten inches in circumference at three feet from the ground. This was about one hundred feet high. I also measured the cedar sills of a bridge over Richland creek, which were fifty-two feet long, and were fourteen in diameter at base, and ten inches at the top end. The shingles covering the courthouse of that county, (and it was a fine looking build- ing,) were made from one single cedar tree. This tree had four and a half feet diameter at stump height.

Since then, and during the present season, I have seen some tall cedars in Central and Eastern Texas. Some of these were in the Red River bottom, in Lamar county, north of Paris. These big, tall cedars are too valuable for lumber and for fencing to be permitted to live, and it is to be feared that in a few years more, few, if any, of them will be left.

LIVE OAK.

The live oak grows taller in Texas than elsewhere. In the old cotton States, it is a low spreading tree. On the Brazos, below Richmond, in southern Texas, I measured several trees in 1861. One had a circumference of nineteen feet and ten inches at three feet from the ground, and another was eighteen feet and nine inches, at the same height. This is not an uncommon diameter for the live oak-the wonder is, the tallness of their trunks, they being long stemmed, without limbs, to the height of thirty and forty feet, and some even fifty feet, with tops not remarkable for extent of limbs. The live oaks extend northward through Central and Western Texas to the Red River.

SWEET GUM-(Liquid Amber.)

Is quite common in Central and Eastern Texas, being there often a large, tall tree, with a trunk 3 to 4 feet in diameter.

PECAN.

This tree frequently attains great size in the valleys of rivers and streams, having sometimes a diameter of from 4 to 5 feet. It has a wide range, extending northward to the Red River, and northwestward as far as we have been.

 

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ASH

Many species are common in the State. In the Brazos and Trinity river bottoms some of these trees attain great size-three or four feet in diameter. In the northern States the wood of these trees is prized for the wood work of wagons and carriages, and also for the manufacture of agricultural implements.

For the making of all these things, Texas has an abundance of the best of timber, especially in its central and eastern portions.

GRAPES.

There are seven species of grapes indigenous to the State. "Vitis Æstivalis," or summer grape, which, however, at the north does not ripen its fruit until September and October.

"Vitis Vulpina," or muscadine, which is also often called the bullace grape. This grows from the southern Tpart of the State, northward through Central and Eastern exas, to the Red River. It is the parent of the scuppernong, which will probably do well throughout most of that region.

"Vitis Lincecumi," or post oak grape, which grows throughout the post oak region of the tertiary. For a further account of this grape, see Appendix. I will, however, add that Dr. Gray referred this grape to V. Labrusca, and recently Dr. Engelman, of St. Louis, calls it V. Æstivalis. Both are wrong, and every one acquainted with it in Texas knows it to be a very distinct grape. Dr. Morrow, of Rob- ertson county, who is a very good botanist, told me last summer that lie knew of but three growing vines of the Æstivalis in that county. He had known it well in Tennessee. Both it and the post oak grape grow on his place in Robertson county, and he knew them to be very distinct in fruit and habit. The Æstivalis climbs the highest, has the largest racemes, the smallest fruit, and ripens about one month the latest. It also has the smallest leaves.

Of the post oak, there are already two or three esteemed varieties in cultivation. One of these is called McKee's ever-bearing grape, because it is said to have ripe fruit during several months of the summer time. It is said to be an excellent table grape, good for wine and probably also to make raisins, it being of good size. It is cultivated

 

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by Dr. Yoakum, of Larissa, Cherokee county, and by him considered to be a great acquisition.

At the place of Mr. Wilkins, in the north part of Lamar county, last summer, I saw a post oak vine which the family said bore one of the best grapes, if not the very best, they had ever seen, and they had a large variety of grapes in cultivation. Mrs. Wilkins gave me some post oak grape wine which was very excellent, the grape being considered the best for wine of any they had in cultivation. Dr. Yoakum considered the McKee ever-bearing, the scuppernong, and the Concord to be the three best grapes for cultivation at his place in the northern part of Cherokee county.

The mustang grape, (Vitis Mustangensis,) is the most widely diffused of any grape in the State. I met with some few persons during the summer who called it the post oak grape. It growl throughout most of the State, and attains a large size, sometimes almost completely overspreading the largest trees. It is readily known by its leaves, which are of a deep green above, and tomentose white beneath. Its fruit has also very distinctive charac- ters, being large and black, nearly an inch in diameter, in clusters of moderate size. It is little esteemed for eating, on account of an acid juice in the inner cuticle of the skin, which, if swallowed, gives a burning pain in the throat. I have found some varieties quite palatable, and there is no doubt but that some good grapes for cultivation will be de- rived from the mustang. I have one which bears a large white grape, which promises to be good for wine.

The mountain grape, (Vitis Monticola,) grows on the sides and tops of the mountains in Burnet and San Saba. counties. It climbs to a moderate height, has compara- tively small leaves, of a pale green, somewhat corrugated above when young, tomentose beneath, slightly lobed. Its racemes are quite long and fruit somewhat scattered, vary- ing in color from pale yellow to deep black, of medium size, about half an inch in diameter, juicy with a pleasant acidity; ripens September. Such are some I have in cul- tivation. It is said that solve of its forms in the moun- tains ri pen as early as the first of August.

The tree last grapes were first named and described by the author in 1861, in the Proceedings of the Academy of Nat. Sciences at Philadelphia. (See Appendix.)

Nitis Nepestris grows in the valleys of Western Texas, sometimes climbing to a moderate height, and again grow- ing erect in thick patches along streams, without climbing.

 

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Its leaves are of a light green, very smooth, largely and sharply serrated, slightly lobed, resembling somewhat the muscadine leaves. Its fruit is small, on racemes two to three inches long, closely placed, not very juicy or good, as cultivated by me. I have heard of some of its fruit being very good among the mountains of the northwest.

Vitis Cordifolia, or the winter grape, is common in valleys throughout a large portion of the State. I have never seen any of its fruit which was good for eating or wine, its grapes having very little juice.

Vitis Vulpina, muscadine, or bullace grape, grows throughout a large portion of Central and Eastern Texas, as far north as Red River. It grows along streams, being rarely seen on uplands north of the latitude of Washing-ton county.

It is the parent of the scuppernong, which is so highly prized in the old cotton States. It is probable that it will do well in most of Central and Eastern Texas.

A large portion of the State is well suited for grape cutture. In Central and Eastern Texas I saw some fine vineyards. Several of these are in Robertson county, at Calvert and Bremond. When I was there, the last of May and first of June, the vines were loaded with fruit, and had a vigorous, healthy appearance. I was told that the grapes were not subject to mildew, owing to the droughts and breezes of summer. Most of the cultivated kinds do well, or rather best, on sandy soils with a clay subsoil. Hill sides and lands not adapted to ordinary tillage, seem best suited to many kinds of grape, which require a dry soil of moderate fertility. Indeed most grapes do best in dry up- land lands, which do not retain moisture for a long time. Valleys often have such soils, while some of the adjacent hills have tenacious clays, where the water stays for weeks and months. I knew of a man in Texas who planted a vineyard on just such a hill. Of course his grape business was nearly a failure. There are few, if any, fruits which will endure droughts so well as the grape. for the cultiva-tion of which a very large portion of Texas is peculiarly well suited. In Texas there are many hill sides and up-lands which can now be bought for fifty cents an acre- lands better than some I have known to be sold in Western New York for two hundred dollars per acre, and bought for the growth of grapes. Here the climate is better for grapes than there. That grape culture in the right place,

 

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and rightly managed, is very profitable every reader of agricultural papers knows.

PEACHES

do remarkably well throughout a large portion of Texas. I have seen and raised larger and better peaches here than I ever saw in the markets of New York, Philadelphia and Washington, and I have seen some of the best peaches sold in those markets.

In my orchard, near Austin, I have a succession of ripe peaches from the last days of May until the middle of November.

In Cherokee county, there is largely grown a kind of peach, which is called Briggs' never-fail, because it never fails to bear annual crops of fruit-good fruit. This is owing to its habit of late blooming, nor does it put forth its blossoms all at once, but in succession, and thus yields fruit for several weeks of the summer. This has been its habit for more than twenty years. I was told, in the town of Rusk, that these peaches were annually sold without fail in their market. Dr. Yoakum, of Larissa, told me that he vis- ited Mr. Briggs, in whose orchard it originated, and Mr. B. said that he had never failed a single season to have peaches from these trees for the last twenty years. This being so, this peach is a great acquisition in our climate, where the peach generally fails, on account of spring frosts, once in three, or once in five years.

APPLES.

North of the latitude of Austin, throughout a large por- tion of the State, apples do well, the early and summer varieties succeeding the best. Good apple orchards are quite common in Eastern and Central Texas. In the lati- tude of Austin and southward, many suppose and say that it is useless to attempt the culture of the apple. Thus I was told and so believed, yet I planted a few apple trees. They did well, and I planted more, and I now have an or- chard of nearly three hundred apple trees, all growing finely, and I let them grow, not pruning any, except to keep the root sprouts below the graft from growing. planted thicker than the nurserymen direct, only ten to twelve feet apart. By permitting low limbs to grow they

 

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shade the body of the tree; by planting thick, in a few years they will shade each other. The trees bear fruit-- fruit according to the descriptions of the different varieties in the nursery catalogues. The trees were bought from Southern nurseries, and many of them are kinds which have originated at the South. The orchard was planted from three to five years ago, in a dark, sandy soil, in the valley of the Colorado.

Many apples have been planted in various parts of the State, from Northern nurseries; and experience teaches that many Northern kinds are failures here. Others plant trees in places unsuited to the growth of the tree, and more, they do not take care of the trees; consequently many of them die, and the remainder do not thrive or bear fruit. Then they say apples will not grow and bear good fruit in Texas. There are now many such people through- out the State.

Excellent winter apples are grown in Northern Texas. At the Lamar Nurseries of Mr. Walker, near Paris, I saw a very fine apple orchard in full bearing, many of the trees loaded with large fine apples. From this orchard, Mr. W. has good ripe apples the year round. At Mr. Walker's, and a neighboring nursery, were about 200, 000 young apple trees, a large portion of which will be planted this winter; for the people of the State are awake to the importance of fruit culture. Other nurseries, one or more of which are near every large town, have their stores of trees for sale.

PEARS

are being planted quite largely in some portions of the State. One man is planting fifty acres to pear trees, near the Central Railroad, south of Dallas. At the Lacy place, at Dallas, I saw an orchard of 1200 pear trees, all of which were doing well. Near Austin, I have an orchard of 1000 pear trees growing finely, and some of them bear fruit at the ages of from four and five years. The pear stands the drouth better, and is less liable to the attacks of insects than the apple. Young apple trees require watching to prevent the borer from destroying them.. This insect lays its eggs in the bark at the surface of the ground; the eggs hatch and the grub eats into the tree and often kills it. As remedies, applications of strong soapsuds are recommended. To make sure, many watch their trees, destroy the eggs or

 

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kill the grub by digging in with a sharp knife, or inserting a wire.

Plums of the Chickasaw family do well. Most others do not.

CHERRlES

are also failures, except in the more northern parts of the State, where some of the forms of Murrills do pretty well.

Currants and gooseberries failures.

BLACKBERRIES

are indigenous in Central and Eastern Texas; hence, when cultivated, they grow and bear finely. In Leon and some other counties, I saw bushels of large ripe blackberries last summer during the first days of June.

RASPBERRIES

None are indigenous in the State, nor do any of the kinds succeed well in cultivation, excepting the blackcaps, some of which, in shady places, with good culture and rich soil, bear well, as has done the mammoth cluster near Austin. The blackcaps do very well in Central, Eastern and North- ern Texas, where, also, are grown fine

STRAWBERRIES,

which, to succeed well near Austin and westward, require shade and moisture and some good culture. This done, good crops are the result.

FIGS

do very well, the only drawback to their culture being their liability to be killed down by frosts in most of the region north of the latitude of Austin. Gov. Throckmorton told me that he knew of a farmer in Northern Texas, who pro- tected his fig trees from the cold by stacking his fodder, around them. He had a yard enclosing his fig trees, and in this placed the fodder. In the wheat, oats and barley region, the straw might be placed around the fig trees, and the trouble would be well paid for, in plenty of luscious figs during the summer. Enough care has not been given to this fruit, and to the selection of the better kinds. I

 

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have twelve kinds, which give fruit from the first of June until the frosts of November and December, some of the figs being nearly three inches in diameter.

ORANGES.

In the southwestern part of the State, near Brownsville, the orange does very well. At Galveston, they grow in the open air and bear fruit. It is probable that the culture of this fruit may be made profitable on some portions of the coast of Texas, and if so, so can the

LEMON,

with equal, or even greater profit.

Fruit culture depends much upon soil and climate, and much more upon the proper selection of varieties, and, when planted, their after management; hence one person succeeds and another fails, and both have similar soils in the same neighborhood.

VEGETABLES.

All the vegetables grown at the North, with the addition of many more peculiar to a Southern climate, are cultivated in Texas.

Considerable attention has been paid to the growth of onions in San Saba county during the last four years, and with wonderful success. Mr. Ward told me that 45,000 pounds of El Paso onions can be made to the acre there. lie made over 13,000 pounds the past season, which was not a favorable one, nor was the culture what it ought to have been. Two onions were grown there, one of which was 64 inches in diameter, and the other 5⅝ inches; six onions weighed on an average more than two pounds each. One man can tend an acre of onions. At San Saba the onions sold at from 3½ to 5 cents a pound. He also said that onions can be kept from rotting, by being careful not to bruise them, and also keep them on racks, not in heaps, giving them light and air, and dry air.

To raise them, the ground must be irrigated. Near the town of San Saba there are over 1000 acres irrigated, under cultivation. It was cheerful and pleasant to see the growing things on these irrigated lands; vegetables, fruits

 

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and flowers. There are many thousands of acres in Western Texas, which can be irrigated and made equally productive. San Saba county has sixteen large everflowing springs of good clear water, some of which give water power enough, and more than enough, to run large flouring mills, as is done by the beautiful springs at the town of San Saba.

COTTON

is more generally grown than any other plant, with the exception of corn.

In the middle and southern parts of the State, especially the latter, much damage has been done by the cotton worm, so much so, as in some seasons, to make the expenses of cotton planters greater than their incomes.

To destroy the worm has been a great desideratum for many years. Mr. Simpson, of Columbus, Colorado county, who was me in the survey during the summer, writes as follows:

COLUMBUS, TEXAS, Nov. 3, 1874.
Dr. S. B. Buckley:

Dear Sir

-Since arriving home I have made careful enquiries concerning the "Cotton Worn Destroyers" used. The principal have been Johnson's "Dead Shot," "Royal's Cotton Worm Destroyer," and Paris green, and arsenic, either in solution with water or mixed with flour.

I informed you of my experience with Royal's" patent when with you, and my success. From those who used it this year, I find it has been equally successful. Some planters saying that it is the surest. My brother-in-law, Mr. McCormick, used "Johnson's Dead Shot" this year and it proved entirely satisfactory. It is, I believe, generally preferred on account of its cheapness, it only costing some 8 or 10 cents an acre, while "Royal's," (Paris green mixture) costs $1.00 to $1.50 an acre.

Either, when applied according to directions, will without doubt kill the worms. Arsenic has also been used in lieu of Paris green, with success. The worms did not attack my father's place this year, hence nothing was used enclose Johnson's circulars, which shows illustrations of machine used.

FRIENCH SIMPSON.

These remedies will make cotton a more certain crop than it has been.

In some few instances, in various parts of the State, small patches of cotton die in the summer months, often after the

 

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plant is in bloom, no one can tell why. I have been often requested to tell the reason.

I do not think it is in the soil, because the plants die in far distant parts of the State, when growing on different. soils. Some may say that although these may be quite, different, yet they may have the same chemical ingredient which kills the cotton. Very true, but then in the same, spot, or nearly the same, I saw plants side by side, the one wilted and dead, the other alive and flourishing, and this extending through a large portion of a big cotton field, about twenty miles west of Dallas, on the road to Fort Worth.

The dead plants extended over two or three acres, side to side with those that were healthy. It seems to me unreasonable to suppose that a poison could be so unequally, placed in the soil; and more, remain inoperative until the plant is grown, or nearly grown, and then be taken by the plant in such large quantities as to cause sudden death, for the plant may seem well one day, and be withered and dead the next.

Fruit trees and portions of hedge rows wither and die, and none can tell why. At Mr. J. O. Crutchfield's, about three miles east of Dallas, in a certain portion of his orchard, both apple and pear trees had suddenly wilted and died. Two young apple trees had recently died, one the day before I was there. These were dug up and their roots examined. At the base of the tree, extending down the larger roots, between the bark and sap wood, extending into the wood, were the paths of termites, and the insects going through them in crowds. Both of the trees were similarly effected; hence it seems very probable that the termites caused the death of these trees. Certainly they had began work on the tree which had died the day before, long previous to its death. These termites or white ants, belong to the same genus as the white ants of tropical countries, which are so destructive to wood. I think that both the cotton plants and trees were killed by insects, for even insects which are invisible to the naked eye, may be so numerous as to do considerable damage. They drink the juices which are the life blood of the plant.

CORN.

With good culture corn is a sure crop throughout most of the State. Even in the dry climate of Western and

 

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Northwestern Texas, good crops are made by early planting, deep plowing and good tillage. The last summer, an unusual dry one, so dry that some raised little or no corn, yet others raised good crops in adjoining fields. I was told of one man in Parker county who raised nearly forty bushels to the acre last season, and his neighbor across the way did not raise five. Mr. Medlar, who has a large farm and stock ranche in Young county, told me last fall that he had not failed to make enough corn on his place for home use during the last twenty years; he uses a great deal, having 15 to 20 horses and mules, and 3000 to 4000 head of cattle. I give these examples from what is generally thought to be the poorest part of the State for the growth of corn. That big crops of corn are annually grown in the central, eastern and southern parts of the State, is well known to our citizens.

WHEAT

is grown in most of the State, in the latitude north of Austin, and some little in the more southern counties. Its culture is largely on the increase. Last fall, in traveling through many of the northwestern counties, we frequently saw stacks of wheat and oat straw, the threshing having been done. The usual yields of wheat-growing regions are realized, ranging from 5 to 40 bushels to the acre.

OATS

are now largely grown, much more so than ten or fifteen years ago. Last spring I saw some very fine oat fields in Robertson county, one on the farm of Esquire Moore, at Bremond, had oats about five feet high, thick standing, promising a yield of fifty or more bushels to the acre. Col. Whaley, in the northern part of Clay county, on the Red River, told me that he had raised eighty bushels to the acre.

BARLEY

is also grown in some sections, especially by the Germans. It is used largely for making lager beer, and also for feeding stock.

RICE.

is grown to a considerable extent in some of the counties in southeastern Texas. Tyler, Polk and Trinity counties are

 

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the largest growers of rice. According to the census report nearly 14,000 pounds of rice were grown in the county of Tyler in 1870.

SUGAR CANE

can be grown in the country, south of the latitude of Austin. In Central and Eastern Texas, it has been grown still further north. Texas has a very large area suitable for the growth of the cane, probably larger than any other State. Now that less expensive machinery has been introduced and used, for the manufacture of sugar, machinery, so cheap that the farmer of small means can have it, the culture of the cane will soon largely increase, because it can be made a very profitable crop; 1200 to 1500 pounds of sugar to the acre not being an unusual yield, besides molasses, and, it is said, that the molasses will defray the expenses of culture.

TOBACCO.

Comparatively but little of it is grown for market; but nearly every farmer, especially those who till but a few acres, and use tobacco, such men raise their own tobacco. Notwithstanding the much which has been said and written against the use of tobacco, it is more universally used than any other plant, its use being very common on both continents. There is not the least doubt, but that it may be made a large paying crop in many portions of the State. It is now grown to a considerable extent in Montgomery, Panola and Tarrant counties, Tarrant in the northwest, Panola in the eastern, and Montgomery in the southern part of the State, showing that tobacco can be grown in the State throughout a wide range of territory.

BEES.

Fruit trees are being planted largely, and already orchards are common, and these fruit trees have flowers; besides the woods, the fields and the prairies have thousands of flowers, all of which afford food and honey for bees. Besides, experience proves that bees in orchards increase the yield of fruit, by going from flower to flower, and scattering the pollen, so as to fertilize and start the growth of the young fruit; hence, the keeping of bees ought to be general, and not limited to here and there, a family as is

 

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now the case throughout a large portion of the State. Improved hives, with movable comb frames, should be used, and every body can make such now without infringing any patent.

SUMACH.

There are several species of this shrub, or small tree, growing in the State, two of which yield leaves, twigs and bark, useful for tanning. These are the rhus glabras and rhus typhina.

In Texas, there are several tanneries, and there ought to be many more, because the hides are here, and the mate- rial to tan them, and a home market for the leather.

There is a large tannery at Dallas, owned by the Dallas Tanning Company, who have a capital of $10,000. For tanning they use gambier, or Terra Japonica, the extract of oak bark and sumach. The gambier comes from Sicily. The sumach of Texas is used, for which they pay one dollar per hundred pounds of cured leaves, or $20 per ton.

The price of ground Virginia sumach is $60 per ton. Texas sumach can be ground and sent north at about 25 per cent. profit, as the market now is, (July, 1874.) Say $20 per hundred for the dried leaves and leaf stems, $ 5 per ton for grinding, $5 for sacking, and $15 for freight, leaving a profit of 25 per cent.

A first class sumach mill can be bought and put up at Dallas for about $1200, to which must be added the cost of the engine. Such a mill will grind from one to two tons per day, varying, as the condition of the sumach may be. The Dallas company have paid as high as $110 per ton for Sicilian sumach, but they have ceased to use it, finding the Texas sumach to be much the cheapest.

The leather made by this company is said by the Dallas shoemakers to be superior to most of the imported leather, and equal to the best; hence, the company have a home market for all the leather they can make. At their present rate of manufacturing they will make $160,000 worth of leather annually. Enough sumach grows in the county of Dallas to supply several such tanneries. There is no tree or shrub more widely diffused in the State than the sumach, and none so plentiful.

HEDGES.

There is no plant so suitable for these as the bois d'arc, or osage orange, (Maclurea aurantiacæ). A native of Middle or Northern Texas, it is at home here. Deeprooted,

 

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it thrives in both wet and dry soils, its native places being generally in valleys and along streams. It is a small tree, sometimes one to two feet in diameter, and thirty to forty feet high. Its timber is very durable, hence, it is valued for fence posts and for railroad ties, for which purposes its cultivation would be profitable.

Near McKinney and Dallas, and counties farther north, I have seen fine hedges during the past summer. Mr. Sims, who is a native of Georgia, now living in Grayson county, has a hedge of the bois d'arc pruned up to the height of ten feet, and so thick at the bottom, that it will keep a rabbit out. The hedge of Mr. Graves, in Collin county, near McKinney, is four years old, and proof against hogs and cattle. He says, his dogs, in running rabbits, often run them against the hedge, and catch them. Dr. Foote, the member of the House of Representatives, from Collin, says, he knows of bois d'arc posts which have been in the ground twenty-two years, which are still sound and show no evidence of decay. The soil of Collin county is mostly a dark prairie limestone, three or more feet deep. Dr. Foote says, that land on the old farm of Gov. Throckmorton's father, which has been cultivated with little or no manure for thirty-five years, produces as well as ever. Collin county lands give from 25 to 40 bushels of corn to the acre, and cotton, from one-half a bale to a bale of 500 pounds. I give this as a sample of a large portion of the lands of the cretaceous region.

Near Austin, I have a fine hedge of bois d' arc, strong enough to turn cattle and hogs. It is five years old, from the seed. I have tried the pyracanth, and find it not strong enough, nor will it thrive during dry seasons. It may do better in the eastern part of the State.

The reason why so many fail with the bois d' arc, is that they do not trim it enough, nor cultivate it enough by preventing other things from growing with it. I know that there are many good hedges in the State, and there would be many more, had they been rightly managed; for what has been done can be done again. Plant thickly, six to eight inches apart; prune well for the first four or five years, and the bottom stems will soon be so large and close as to form an impenetrable fence to man or beast. To have such fences, especially around orchards, will pay well for all the trouble and care required to make them.

 

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NOXIOUS INSECTS, SNAKES, ETC.

In some letters which I have received, inquiries are made about these in Texas. Tarantulas, centipedes, scorpions, snakes, etc., were the terror of my wife when she first came to Texas, but the experience of years has taught her not to fear these things. They are seldom seen and rarely do any harm. I have never known any one to be killed by them, and very few to be injured in the least. When engaged in the survey, and sleeping on the ground at night, as has been my practice for most of three summers, I have never been troubled with any of these things.

The common house fly, mosquitoes and ants are the greatest pests. To these may be added the grasshoppers in the northwestern part of the State. In Central and Southern Texas, in the latitude of Austin, and southward, the cutting ant is troublesome; so much so as to destroy fruit trees, rose bushes and shrubbery. To destroy the ants, some dig them out and burn them up; if all the females are killed-these are the large winged ones which keep under ground in their cellars-then the town or den is destroyed. Recently a cheap and effectual method has been adopted to destroy them. It is by driving the fumes of sulphur and carbolic acid into their underground apartments by means of a bellows. Some make it their business to do this, and they are doing a good work.

SHEEP

are largely kept in Texas, but not near to the extent they should be. There is no stock which will give quicker and surer profits than will sheep, rightly placed and rightly managed. They do the best in dry uplands, where there is plenty of water; for, contrary to what many suppose, sheep need drink; not but that they will live on dewy, green grass, in places where there are no streams or springs, but they will do the best in hilly regions where they can have access to plenty of water. So Kendall told me, and he was one of the most successful wool growers that ever kept sheep in Texas. In western Texas, in what is now Kendall county, he invested three thousand dollars in sheep and lands, the land costing but little more than the expense of surveying. In ten years that investment, above all expenses, had increased to the amount of about eighty thousand

 

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dollars, giving an income of ten thousand dollars annually. To take care of his sheep, Kendall had Mexicans and shepherd dogs. One shepherd and a dog would take care of from one thousand to twelve hundred sheep, the sheep being put in pens at night as a protection from wolves. Most of these animals had been destroyed by feeding them fresh meat and strychnine. Every spring, after shearing, the sheep were dipped in tobacco water to destroy ticks and prevent scab. The start was made with healthy sheep, and thus they remained. One hundred acres was fenced, where the summer grasses were permitted to grow for winter pasturage. In this enclosure were shelters to protect the sheep from storms. This hundred acres was the hospital where the weakest and poorest sheep were placed, and they very rarely failed to be cured.

Many others have bought sheep, and by neglecting to have the proper care taken of them, have lost money in the investment, and some have bought diseased sheep, and also lost money. Such men decry the business, and say there is no profit in it.

The Chamberlain Brothers started a sheep ranche in the corner of Milam and Bell counties, in 1860, During the war their losses were about equal to their gains; but since then the profits in the investment have been large. From a statement in the Austin Statesman, it appears that this ranche was bought two years ago by Mr. T. F. Fowler. "He paid for the ranche, consisting of 1300 acres of land and 3700 head of sheep, $22,400 gold. The first year's clip brought him $6000; the second $6,200; meanwhile lie has sold $3,200 worth of bucks, and $3,000 of ewes, and has now his original number, less one hundred."

Last September, I met with an intelligent and wealthy Englishman, who had resided many years in Australia, and was well acquainted with the sheep business of that country. He has now settled with his family in Parker county, about 12 miles east of Weatherford, on the Clear Fork of the Trinity river, where he has started a sheep ranche, thinking Texas is better for that business than any land he has ever seen.

In the New England States, and in other northern States, sheep are kept on lands valued at $50 and $100 per acre, and money made in the business, and that too in a climate requiring costly shelters, and the feeding of hay and grain more than six months annually. Certainly much greater profits can be realized in Texas, and it has been done, as is proven by the preceding examples.

 

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CATTLE.

Many improvements are being made in this, the most important and largest branch of the stock business in the State. Now most of the men having large droves of cattle have herdsmen, whose duty it is to guard and watch the cattle. Others have and are having their lands fenced, as is being done by King, and others in the southwestern part of the State. In the stock regions of the northwestern settled portions of the State, most of the cattle are herded. This is said to have become a necessity, on account of numerous cattle thieves.

Mr. Yarborough, living near Sherman, in Grayson county, is said to have about 4000 cattle ranging in the counties west of Grayson, all guarded by herdsmen. He sells his cattle mostly at Sherman, from which. place many are .shipped by railroad to other points.

Mr. Medlar, who has several thousand cattle in Young county, sold his four year old steers last year at $17 00 each, three years old $13 00, cows $11 00 to $12 00 each. He has between 400 and 500 cows, but milks no more than enough to give milk and butter to his family; and this is the custom of Texas large cattle raisers.

Improved breeds of cattle are being brought into the State-Durhams, Brahmins, Jerseys, etc. Hon. Web. Flannagan, of the Senate, has some fine Jerseys, and Jersey cows are most prized as milkers, some few preferring the Alderneys, as giving the most milk, but that. of the Jersey cow is said to be the richest. The Jerseys are perfectly hardy here, and their introduction is a great acquisition. Not so with the Durhams, which have died in some sections, not being able to endure the continued warm weather of summer. Some of them have become acclimated, .and are doing well. It is said that Durhams imported in the fall do much better than those brought here in the spring.

The Brahmins do well. This breed was introduced into the South many years ago, at the suggestion of Dr. Bachman, of Charleston, S. C. Durhams had not done well in South Carolina-therefore the Brahmins were imported. These are said to be superior to other cattle as workers, some asserting that they are equal to mules in this respect, but the cows are not noted as large milkers.

 

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Last summer, I saw some fine Durham cattle at Mr. Still's, near McKinney, who has made, and is making, large importations of improved cattle, horses and hogs.

The native cows of the State can be much improved as milkers. This is being done to a considerable extent, and much more can be done by selecting the heifer calves of the best cows for future milch cows.

A few years ago, there was published the statement of a mechanic, who bought a Texas cow, and he was much disappointed to find that she gave but two or three quarts of milk. He bought some bran at a mill and gave her two or three quarts of this, mixed with water, night and morning, and the result was, that in a few weeks she gave more than six quarts night and morning.

SWINE.

A marked improvement has been made in hogs during the past few years. Burkshires, Poland, Chinas and other breeds are now common in a large portion of the State. The people have learned that the keeping of these breeds give the largest profits. Not near enough hogs are kept in the State for the wants of the people, large quantities of hams, bacon and lard being annually imported. This ought not to be. More hogs should be kept, and they should be better kept than they now are. Last spring, I staid all night with a small farmer, in the southern part of Limestone county, who owned only about fifty acres. At night, he called up about forty large hogs, and fed them a few ears of corn. They were the best forty hogs I ever saw at any one place in Texas. He fed them a few ears of corn again in the morning. This has been his practice for years, and the result is he annually sells several hundred dollars' worth of bacon, and realizes a large profit. By having his hogs at home at night, they are not liable to be stolen, and, kept in a growing condition, it takes less corn to fatten them in the fall.

HORSES.

Many fine horses have always been kept by the people of Texas; hence, there is comparatively little improvement needed in this respect. The raising of horses could be made very profitable on the grassy plains of the State, were it not for thieving whites and Indians. The raising of horses is now quite largely done, where the thieving Indians do not come.

 

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POULTRY.

Almost all kinds abound and are easily raised and kept. Wild geese and ducks are here in the winter, and wild turkeys are common in the less settled regions.

HOG WALLOW PRAIRIE.

In some portions of the State, in dark, sticky, limestone soils, are the peculiar depressions known as hog wallows. These are well known to most of our citizens. Several theories have been advanced to account for these "wallows." The past summer was unusually dry in many parts of the State, and large cracks were made in all soils abounding in "wallows." Big rains came, flooding many parts of the country. Afterwards, in passing where the hog wallows prevailed, we could see plainly how they were made. The holes made by the cracks were being filled in part by the washing in of loose earth, made loose on the edges of the cracks by the rain, and there not being sufficient earth to fill the very deep cracks, depressions were made. These things were repeatedly seen by the members of our party, and left no doubt in the mind of any one as to the cause of "wallows."

This corresponds with what was told me by some of the most intelligent citizens of the State, in 1859 and '60.

I have never seen any of these peculiar wallows in sandy soils, or any soils which do not have large, deep cracks in extreme drouths.

MOUNTAINS-ELEVATIONS.

In Northern Texas, the highest poinst above the level of the sea are only about two thousand feet.

According to the engineers of the Texas Pacific Railroad, Phantom Hill is 1597 feet. There are many other higher points in that vicinity. Railroad surveys through Young county show an elevation of from 1000 to 1300 feet at Graham and vicinity. Some of the highest points near Fort Belknap are probably nearly 1600 feet. With a spirit level, I measured one of the highest points on the Brazos river, about three miles south of the fort, and found it to be 325 feet above the river. This is above and north of Graham, which is in the valley of the Salt Fork, three miles above

 

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its junction with the Brazos, to which, from Graham, it flows with little current, not having a fail of more than ten, feet; hence the hill below Belknap is only about 1500 feet high.

From Fort Griffin northwestward, into Haskell county the road goes up a succession of hills -until beyond the Clear Fork of the Brazos a plateau or table land is reached, from which rises here and there a hill. This table land has probably about the same elevation as the Staked Plains in the adjoining territory, or county of Young, at the west, but a few miles into which we could see from some of the hills of Haskell. Large herds of buffalo were feeding on the grassy plains, and also on the hills and in the valleys-an interesting and pleasant view.

That portion of the State east of Trinity river is called Eastern Texas; Central is between the Brazos and Colorado, rivers, and Western west of the Colorado river. Lands in Eastern Texas can be bought at from one to fifty dollars. per acre; however, not much land is valued as high as $50, except small places with good buildings and improvements; the average rate of farms being at from two to ten dollars per acre. We found more vegetables and fruits is the central and eastern portions of the State than in the, western, where stockraising is the main business. Central and Eastern Texas abound in fine streams anti springs. It is a land adapted to a, varied agriculture-to the growth of the small grains, in addition to that of corn and cotton. It is one of the finest countries in the world., especially for the growth of the grape, for which the iron-clad hills are peculiarly well adapted. The average yield of cotton per acre is about 250 pounds, or one-half a bale; yet frequently more than a bale is grown. Of corn, about twenty-five bushels per acre; often much more, and Ire fluently less. Experiences teaches that men with small farms, who practice a varied agriculture, have most of the comforts of life and the least trouble; because the large land owner has either to hire or rent out his land, either of which is a troublesome business, as is well known to many large planters, who have either whites or negroes to work their lands.

TILLAGE OF UNFENCED LANDS.

In the northern part of the State. in Clay, Wchita and other counties, then, is a prairie land with very little timber-not enough for fencing purposes; hence, by mutual

 

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agreement of the settlers, the cattle are guarded on the prairie by day and shut in enclosures at night. A boy on horseback will herd several hundred. A boy is hired at from twelve to fifteen dollars per month. Col. Whaley told me that the expense of herding his cattle amounted to only twenty-five dollars per month, boy, horse and keeping of them included. Col. Whaley is a large grain grower, and for his grain he has a home market-from the government troops on the frontier, and at Fort Sill, in the Indian Territory, or rather on the Reserve, as it is called. His place is near the junction of the Big Wichita and Red River. The past season he raised 10,000 bushels of oats; wheat, 1500; corn, 1200, and barley, 50 bushels, the last being but the commencement of the culture of that grain to obtain seed to sow next spring. He grows the black variety of oats, which are hardy, more sure, and a heavier grain, so he thinks, the average yield being about fifty bushels to the acre, which he generally sells at his gran- aries at about one dollar per bushel. At the time of my visit, in September, 1874, he had contracted the crop at ninety-three cents per bushel. I never before saw such an amount of grain, at any. one place, all threshed and in graneries; and all the grain was of a superior quality, excepting the wheat, which had only a medium grain. He says he has raised as much as one hundred bushels of oats to the acre. His wheat this year gave only from fifteen to twenty bushels to the acre, the average being about seventeen. He expected to get forty bushels to the acre, but the drouth began much earlier than usual, which made the wheat crop short throughout a large portion of the State.

Corn, he raises, on an average, about twenty-five bushels to the acre, which is the yield this year with less rain than usual. Has grown as high as sixty bushels of corn to the acre; raises the yellow variety, which is mostly grown in Western Texas, because it ripens early before the usual. drouths of summer.

Col. W. raised last year 15,000 bushels of grain. He is the largest grain grower of that region. Has six neighbors who are engaged in the same business, most of them being beginners there. His neighbor, Col. Stratton, has several hundred acres in cultivation. Col. S. went with us into "Wichita county, and to him I am also indebted for much valuable information. Improved agricultural machinery

 

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is there used. The soil is a light sandy loam, being very easily tilled after the first plowing. One man, with gang plows, can plow six to eight acres a day, and one man can till upwards of fifty acres. The land is very fertile, deposits of the Red and Wichita rivers, containing gypsum and other fertilizing salts. Between 1000 to 2000 acres of lands, unfenced, are in cultivation in that neighborhood.

About nine miles southward, on the Henrietta road, several hundred acres of unfenced prairie were being plowed for wheat, oats and barley, and also corn. On the Little Wichita, are several hundred acres of unfenced lands in cultivation.

I was agreeably disappointed in regard to that Wichita region, having supposed it to abound in poor water to such an extent as to make it undesirable for a residence. On the contrary, it is well watered; has plenty of fine springs and streams of good water. A whitish sandstone underlies the limestones and soils, and from this sandstone comes an abundance of good water, fine large springs, of which some are at the town of New Henrietta, and other places. At the Gilbert place, in Wichita county, are extra fine springs.

This Wichita country is a beautiful fertile prairie land, just uneven enough to give beauty and variety to the scene, the prairies being skirted with timber along the streams, amply sufficient for fuel, and rocks enough for building purposes. Millions and millions of untilled lands are there, lands as fertile as those cultivated by Stratton, Whaley and others. It is a land where farming is less expensive than where it is necessary to have the fields fenced. A few neighbors can join and hire a man or boy to herd their cows and other stock, and by living near each other, be a mutual protection from the Indians. I know of no portion of the State in which the colony-system can be adopted with better advantage than there.

The greatest objection to that region is its liability to be invaded by grasshoppers, from the northwest, in the months of September and October, not, however, until the grain crops are made, and the cotton partly so. I would not grow cotton there. Col. Stratton had one hundred acres of cotton, from which the grasshoppers had eaten most of the leaves, the stems only having cotton opened and unopened of about one-quarter of a crop. The grasshoppers came sooner than he expected this year. Next year he

 

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will not plant cotton. It may be that some of the things used to kill the cotton worms will also destroy the grasshoppers, but they could only be partially fed with the poison, because they spread themselves over the land everywhere; however, they crowd the most where they can get the food which they like best, preferring certain trees and plants. They like the leaves of the pecan, and these they devour, leaving those of the postoak untouched. This year the grasshoppers from Kansas spread themselves over a few of the northwestern counties of the State, extending as far south as Young county, west and, south of which we saw comparatively few of them. They seldom do any damage in Texas before the months of September and October, when the northwestern winds occasionly blow and bring swarms of grasshoppers from the northwestern States. It is fortunate that they come no sooner, but after the crops are made; hence, there is no probability of famine ever being caused in Texas by grasshoppers.

The grasshoppers, the past season, after destroying the crops of the farmers of Nebraska, Kansas and other places, came on to Texas, but too late to do much damage here. Consequently, about 40,000 people in those Northwestern States are said to now need aid in supplies of food to prevent them from starving. Already cold winter is with them, and extreme cold weather prevails there, hence much suffering must be endured by that people.

Contrast that with Texas, her delightful climate, with health giving breezes and fertile soil, yielding material for all the necessaries and comforts of life, with moderate labor-no more than is required to give health and enjoyment. A home here, or a home there; which is preferable? Give me Texas; yes, give me a residence in Texas, in preference to any of the Northern States, with their more than six months winter. Born in western New York, and living there, my life's blood became chilled in the winter time. I was diseased. I came South, and finally to Texas. Health and strength carne back, and have remained with me.

I have received many, very many, letters of enquiry about Texas, most of which are answered in the preceding pages. A common question is, can a person of industrious habits, with little or no means, acquire a competency here? Many such persons have done it here, and many more are doing it. I will give a few examples, taken from different parts of the State:

 

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About six miles west of the town of Graham, in Young county, on the Brazos river, is a farm of 750 acres. Three or four years ago, it was rented by three young men from the State of Georgia. Two were brothers of the name of Brooks, and the other is named Taylor. They were to give one-fourth of the crop for rent. They planted corn mostly, and sold the corn raised, over two thousand bushels, at one dollar per bushel, at home; paid $500 rent and bought the farm with the $1500. This was told me by Mr. Medlar, who, as agent for the owner of the land, did the business with them. The brothers Brooks now own the farm, and one of them has recently married, and the other is about to get a wife. With Messrs. Graham and Medlar, of Young county, I visited this Brooks farm, which is finely situated in a curve of the Brazos river. Their houses are amid live oaks overlooking the farm, and commanding fine views of the Brazos valley and hills, and plains beyond.

A young man there, living with them, has tilled fifth acres of corn the past season, (1874), and I was told that he had made about 1200 bushes of corn. That being a stock region, corn commands a good price there, being $1 per bushel last September.

In the southern part of Limestone county lives a widow of the name of Cox. Her husband died a few years ago, and owing to some defect in the title, their little farm of forty acres was unpaid for. She had three daughters, nearly grown. They raised a crop of cotton, did all the work, and the money for which the cotton was sold, paid for the place, at $5 per acre. It is now worth much more, being dark, rich land; a comfortable house and good orchard of apples and peaches, all the land well fenced.

Some few negroes have good farms, and quite a number of them have good, comfortable homes, all of which they have made since they became free, at the close of the war. As a race, they are improvident, taking little thought for the morrow, hence, most of them are very poor.

Many Swedes and Germans have made for themselves good homes in Texas during the past few years. Much depends upon the man. A person with industry, economy and good management, can, in a few years, secure a good home in almost any part of Texas.

I have merely glanced at the botanical wealth of Texas, which, if properly used, with the addition of a few foreign things in common cultivation, is amply sufficient to ornament

 

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and render pleasant the grounds of our people, both in towns and country. Who would not rather see a cheap little cottage amid trees, shrubs, fruits and flowers, than a palatial mansion without them?

The red cedar is very hardy throughout Texas, is one of the finest evergreens, and can be pruned and trained into almost any shape, as has been done in Nacogdoches county, especially in the old town where great attention is given to the ornamental part of horticulture, causing beautiful flowers, trees and shrubs to abound in the grounds around dwellings and along the streets.

In almost every portion of the settled region visited by the survey during the season, there are many pleasant abodes placed amid trees and shrubbery, but not near as many as there should be. Such things cost comparatively little, and, not only give pleasure to their owners, but to many others.

A neat and convenient residence, with a good library, some newspapers and periodicals; the house embowered among vines and shrubbery, has many of the elements of true happiness. Let all strive to make home pleasant, so that its inmates may prefer it before every other place then the children will be apt to form good habits, and be a blessing to their country and their parents. Nothing will more tend to this result, than beautiful, rural homes, which can easily be made throughout a large portion of Texas.

 

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Expenses of the Geological and Agricultural Survey, from May 1st, 1824, to November 1st, 1874.

S. B. BUCKLEY, State Geologist

 

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WACO UNIVERSITY, December 5, 1874.
Dr. S. B. Buckley, State Geologist of Texas.

DEAR SIR

: I herewith submit my Report of a Geological and Agricultural Reconnoissance, made during last summer, through apart of Eastern, Northern and Middle Texas.

With acknowledgments due you for information, assist- ance, and many acts of courtesy,

I remain, yours truly,

RICHARD BURLESON.

 

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R E P O R T
-OF-
Assistant State Geologist,

I left Waco on the morning train of the 1st of June, and at 3 o'clock of the same day I joined the Geological Corps, then in camps seven miles east of Bremond.

Upon consultation with Dr. Buckley, it was agreed that - I should return to Waco the next day to purchase a second ambulance, having been authorized by Gov. Coke to do so, and having found it an absolute necessity to make our transportation adequate for the party. The next morning, accompanied by James Horne and Jack Coke, 1 returned to Waco. After looking around one day for suitable ambulance and team, we made a purchase front Messrs. Jones & Orand, and at 2 o'clock, June 4th, we left Waco. That night we camped thirteen miles east of town on the Springfield road.

June 5th.- We traveled over high rolling prairies all day. Mr. T. J. Harper and Capt. AV. R. Shea have fine farms lying along our route, which, with good seasons make 15 bushels of wheat, 75 bushels of oats, 30 bushels of corn, and two-thirds of a bale of cotton per acre, which is an average crop for the country. In their neighborhood is a good quality of building stone, which lies in beautiful seams 2½ and 3 inches thick, and can be quarried in plates, frequently ten and twelve feet square. Mr. Bryan, an experienced cotton raiser, living on our way to-day, has interested himself in testing the different varieties of cotton to ascertain the kind best adapted to the soil and climate of Texas. He is satisfied that the burr-cotton is the best, and that with proper culture and good seasons it will produce, on the river-bottoms and the black sandy prairies.

 

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two bales to the acre. He is certain it will double the yield of any other kind of cotton on the same soil and with the same culture.

At Horn Hill we found cretaceous fossils in great numbers. They are in limestone rocks, which are imbedded in a black loam sandy soil.

June 6th.-We crossed the Navasota river at the Rocky Ford. The bed of the river at this place is covered with rocks which are filled with fossils, such as we found at Horn Hill. We camped at night two miles east of Cotton Gin, on the farm of Mr. Pattison's, an old Alabama friend of mine, with whom we spent the Sabbath.

June 8th.-This morning I went with Capt. H. P. Davis to examine some deposits of coal and potter's clay in the neighborhood. The latter is found in the banks of a creek, and exists in great quantities, some of which is very pure and white. The neighbors use it for a whitewash. I have seen it used for painting. It is first put on as a whitewash and after it is thoroughly dried, the oil is applied with a brush. Thus used, it is a good substitute for white lead painting. The coal we found is brown coal. The first stratum is eighteen inches thick and about twelve feet below the surface, found in the bottom and banks of a creek. What I saw was very imperfect, from having been subjected to the action of running water. The second stratum which we were enabled to examine, from a well, is thirty feet below the surface. It is five feet thick and of a much better quality than the first described. In this neighborhood Mr. Grover pointed out to me a plant, silphum laevigatum, the root of which, he says is a good remedy for rheumatism. The virtue of the root is extracted by putting it into pure whisky or brandy, after which, it is to be drank. Mr. Grover says he has seen it tried repeatedly and never knew it fail making a cure. I saw acres of land covered with this plant in the bottoms of the Trinity, two miles west of Dallas. Afternoon we went on our journey, and that night camped near Fairfield.

June 10th.-I gathered several new plants this morning. At 10 o'clock, we arrived at Butler, and called on Hon. H. Manning, who received us very kindly and took great interest in showing us his fine varieties of pears, peaches and plums. His plums were ripe and I can say, I never tasted better fruit of the kind in my life. His pears and peaches were not ripe; but, the trees were loaded with green fruit

 

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of the most promising character. I have never seen these varieties of fruit grown to greater perfection in any State than that of which these gave promise in Mr. Manning's orchard. This is one of the very best counties in the State for raising fruits of all kinds. The land is good, finely timbered and well watered. In the neighborhood of Butler, brown coal is found that does well for warming and culinary purposes; but, not for the forge or furnace, where great heat is required. Salt and soda springs are also found in the neighborhood, from which salt and soda_ were made during the civil war. To-day-afternoon-we crossed the Trinity river at Bonnor's Ferry and camped on Sweet Gum creek, five miles from Palestine.

June 12th.-Dr. Buckley arrived at Palestine on the train from Crockett last night, and came to our camp this morning. We were very glad to meet him. At 11 o'clock Drs. Buckley and Hunter and I went to examine a deposit of coal, eight miles west of Palestine, near the International Railroad. We found the coal cropping out in the banks of a creek at different places, for a distance of three or four miles along the stream. The stratum is four and a half feet thick and ten feet below the surface. It is a good variety of brown coal. Mr. Brooks was sinking a shaft 150 yards from the creek. He is well acquainted with coal mining in W- est Virginia and is confident of finding a valuable mine of coal here. In the neighborhood of Hon. - Reagan's plantation, we found immense quantities, mountains of deposit of brown hæ, that will run, at least,60 per cent. of metalic iron. Wood for making charcoal, in great abundance.

June 13th.-This morning, we left Palestine to examine some deposits of coal and iron ore in the northern portion of Anderson county. After traveling all day over rough roads, we reached the farm of Capt. Jas. Eastland, where we were kindly received and entertained by the captain and his good lady until Monday morning, when the captain generously offered to go with us as guide during the day. We found the coal cropping out of the banks of Caddo, creek and neighboring hills, at three different places within a distance of two miles. The coal is of the same quality as that we found west of Palestine, near the International Railway; but, perhaps, not in the same quantity. We had no means of determining the thickness or area of the stratum, but supposed it not extensive in either direction.

 

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The iron deposit is in the northeastern part of the county, in the vicinity of Kickapoo, where there was a furnace for smelting the ore during the war. The ore is the deposit brown hæ and will run about 55 per cent. of iron.

June 17th.-This morning, at 11 o'clock, we arrived at Rusk, Cherokee county, where we met Senator Dillard. who received us very kindly, and introduced us to several parties, personally interested in having us examine certain localities in the county. Among them was Mr. Philleo, who owns an iron foundry, eight miles west of town.

Next morning, Dr. Buckley and I, with Mr. Philleo as guide, went on horseback to examine his foundry. The works are in a dilapidated condition; the cupel is only run occasionally. Surrounding the foundry, for miles in every direction, the mountains are covered and filled with a rich brown hæ mixed with ochre. Water in abundance, with wood and limestone convenient and in sufficient quantities to run a foundry for a century. In the evening, we returned to town, and started on our way to Nacogdoches, which place we reached the next evening, after a hard day's drive over rough roads and through deep sand. Here, we rejoined the balance of the corps, from which we had separated near Bremond the first of the month. Nacogdoches is an old Spanish town, somewhat worn, but presenting an appearance of much taste and cultivation. I saw more fine shrubbery here than I have seen in any town in Texas. It grows most luxuriantly, Talix Babylonica (weeping willow) and Acacia Juli-brassin (mimosa) growing to the size of trees two feet in diameter and thirty-five feet high.

June 20th.-Dr. Buckley and I, with Mr. John Durst as guide, went to examine a deposit of gypsum, but found none -of any importance. The uplands of Nacogdoches county are poor, though, when seasons are favorable, they produce astonishingly well. The valleys and bottom lands are very rich, and are covered with the different varieties of oaks, hickory and walnut. They yield abundant crops of corn and cotton, with very little cultivation. This evening, we camped at Melrose. Dr. Buckley and I called on Senator Swift, who took very great interest in the survey. and gave us valuable aid and information.

June 22d.-With Capt. L. T. Barrett as guide, we went to examine the oil well and springs in the neighborhood of Melrose. No doubt, there is an inexhaustible fountain of

 

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oil in this section, which extends over five or six counties in the southeastern part of the State. To my mind, it is evident that nothing is needed but capital and the means of ready transportation, to make it a source of vast revenue to the State. This section of the State is rich in its soil, rich in its oil, and rich in its lumber; but wretchedly poor in its transportation. It is believed that the gray dawn of a better day is seen for this most neglected, but rich portion of the State. The St. Louis and Sabine Pass, and the New Orleans and Texas Railroads are pointing in this direction, and, when completed, will tap this rich country, and pour its vast wealth of cotton, and sugar, and oil, and lumber in the lap of the commerce of the world. We camped for the night on the Attoyar river, in San Augustine County.

June 24th.-Not being well myself to-day, Dr. Buckley took Mr. Simpson with him, and went across the country, to examine Mr. McClain's foundry, and to rejoin ins the next day above Linn Flat.

June 25th. In, the evening of to-day, Dr. Buckley and Mr. Simpson got into camp, bringing some of the best specimens of brown coal and iron ore that we had found. They also brought a specimen of superior metalic iron, made at Mr. McClain's foundry. The country we saw today was generally poor, except that in the vicinity of Linn Flat, which was very good. A dense forest of pine covers the country.

June 26th.-In the neighborhood of Henderson, Rusk county, we examined a deposit of coal that crops out of the banks of a branch. The stratum is six or seven feet thick. We had no means of determining the area of the deposit. It is about ten feet below the surface, and is a good quality of brown coal. Coming back to town, Hon. Webster Flannigan received us most cordially at his house, and took very great interest in showing us his thoroughbred stock, consisting in hogs, cattle and horses. He has two imported Jersey cows, which, he says, will give each six gallons of rich milk a day. The Jersey gives the richest milk, producing the most butter, of any cow in the world. His Jersey bull is, certainly, the finest animal of the kind that I ever saw.

June 29th.-When we arrived at Overton, on the International Railroad, to-day, Dr. Buckley put me in charge of the corps, with instructions to go on to Tyler and make

 

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a survey of Smith county, while he went by rail to examine Young's foundry, near Jacksonville, Cherokee county, and Kelley's foundry, near Jefferson. We camped four miles front Overton, on the Tyler road. Pine is the principal natural growth of the country.

June 30th.-At 5 o'clock u. M., we arrived at Tyler. I called on Mr. George Yarborough and Mr. J. P. Douglas, who gave me valuable information of localities in the county, possessing geological interest. Tyler, the capital of the county, is situated in a swag or valley, between a chain of iron ore hills, running northeast and southwest, eight miles west of town, and two chains of iron ore hills, four and five miles east of town, running parallel with the first and with each other. Through this depression the Smith County Railroad runs, connecting the International at Troupe with the Texas and Pacific Railroad at Mineola. The ore in these hills is brown hematite, and will run about fortyfive per cent, of iron. The quantity is inexhaustible.

Brook's saline is seventeen miles southwest from Tyler. This saline covers five or six acres of land. It lies in a valley surrounded with hills, in which are pockets of lime stone. Seven furnaces were run at this saline during the war, making one hundred sacks of salt daily. It takes 300 gallons of the water to make one bushel of salt. The Steen saline is fourteen miles north of Tyler. It covers about ten acres of land, and is surrounded by high hills, in which limestone is found. Twenty furnaces were run at this saline during the war, making 12,000 pounds of salt daily. It takes 190 gallons of the water to make a bushel of salt.

There are several round mountains in this county, from 120 to 150 feet high, the summits of which are covered with a very hard brown sandrock, that makes a very fine building stone. Generally, there is found an old well at the base of these mountains, which, tradition says, the Indians dug in search for precious metals.

There are two kinds of soil in the county-the gray and the red. The red lands are the most valuable, producing, as they do, a greater variety of crops, and are more durable. The gray is a warm, sandy loam, and is better adapted to growing cotton. It will, when fresh, produce a bale to the acre, while the red soil will not make more than two-thirds of a bale.

 

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There is a great variety of fine timber in the county, consisting of pine, maple, hickory, walnut, sweetgum, chinquapin and the different kinds of oak. Smith is one of the best watered counties In the State. It is bounded on the west by the Neches river, and on the north by the Sabine, and literally abounds in the most delightful and beautiful springs I ever saw. Many of them are chalybeate and sulphur, possessing medicinal qualities of great value.

Mr. Douglas told us of coal that had been found in two strata in the northern part of the county, on Silver Lake. The first stratum is about twenty, and the second about seventy feet below the surface. The second stratum is said to be fine coal.

July 6th.-Dr. Buckley rejoined us to-day. Re gives a a good account of Young's and Kelley's foundries. From the latter, lie brought some fine specimens of ore and metalic iron.

From Tyler we turned our faces towards Dallas, going by way of the Jordan saline, in Van Zandt county.

July 8th.-At noon to-day we arrived at the saline. It is one of the largest deposits of the kind in the world, covering four or five hundred acres of land. During the war, a thousand sacks of salt were made daily at this saline. Now there is but one furnace, which runs forty-two kettles, making daily from forty to fifty sacks of the finest and most beautiful salt, of two hundred pounds each. The water from only one well is used. The constituents of the water are, fourteen per cent. of chloride of sodium, a small proportion of iron and gypsum, with a trace of magnesia. One gallon of water yields one and a third pounds of salt. The wells on the saline are dug through eighteen feet of sandy soil. At this depth a thin stratum of quicksand is found, at the bottom of which is a hard pan, whence the salt water issues in a strong stream. The saline is owned by Mr. Sam Q. Richardson, a gentleman of public spirit and enterprise At this place, Dr. Buckley took the train on the Texas and Pacific Railway for Paris, Lamar county, to examine a coal deposit that had been reported to him as existing on Red River, twenty miles north of that town. The corps he left in my charge, with instructions to make observations in Kaufman and Rockwall counties, and to rejoin him at Dallas by the nineteenth of the month.

July 9th.-This morning there was a simultaneous burst of joy from the entire corps, when we came in sight of the

 

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four inches long, from three to ten inches wide, and four inches thick. It is perpendicular, and its lines of jointing, so far as we could examine, were perpendicular and horizontal, and as perfect as the joints of bricks in a wall of masonry. It is impacted on both sides by a very hard, blue, joint clay. In two places the joints in the clay are cut by the wall, showing that the clay was deposited before the matter of the wall was injected. The clay that presses against the wall on both sides is of a whitish cast for two or three inches out from the wall, proving that it has, in time, been subjected to great heat.

The wall is, doubtless, augitic dike, produced by a nonvolcanic, igneous eruption, that broke into parallelograms on cooling, with a laminated structure parallel to it. Between the joints, and adhering to the sides of the wall, we found some deposits of gypsum and iron pyrites, and in the clay a cast of an inoccramus. W e traced the wall on the surface of the ground, half a mile. Its direction is northwest and southeast. Two and a half miles southeast east of town, there is a second dike, or "wall," of the same thickness and material, which runs northeast anal southwest, or at right angles with the first. This we examined from a well on Mr. Shaw's farm. A third dike, two and a half miles south of town, runs east and west. The character and position of the rocks in this are the same as those found in the first and second, except that they are only two inches thick. A fourth dike lies three miles south of town; this runs north of northwest and south of southeast. The character, thickness and position of the rocks of this dike are the same as those of the first and second. We traced the third and fourth dikes on the surface of the ground about two hundred yards. The surrounding country abounds with very high, bold hills. The third and fourth dikes are on the land of Dr. Air. T. Barnes, to whom we are much indebted for valuable aid given us in making these examinations.

Rockwall is a small, but very rich county. I do not suppose there is an acre of poor land within its boundaries. The whole of it is prairie, consisting of a deep, black, waxy sail which is very productive. The best crops of corn, wheat, oats and cotton that I saw during the summer, were in this county. A brushy growth is found on the branches and creeks; the best quality of timber is on the

 

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East Fork of the Trinity, and consists of ash, burr-oak, pinoak, elm, walnut and bois d'arc.

July 17th.-We arrived at Dallas to-day, and met Dr. Buckley. He does not think the deposits of coal on Red River amount to much. He expected to have received -money and arms at Dallas;. but was disappointed. As this would occasion a delay of several days at this place, in which we would be in camp doing nothing for the survey, I decided, with Dr. Buckley's consent, and bearing Pry own expenses, to visit my family at Waco.

July 21st.-Returned to of-r camp at Dallas to-day-. .Dr. Buckley had no news yet from Austin, about money and arms, so we moved out six miles on the Fort Worth road, where we could get grass for our stock, and thus avoid what expense we could, while waiting for intelligence front the capital. We made some geological observations, and collected some specimens for the State cabinet.

July 29th.-Dr. Buckley received to-day from the Treasurer of the State, a check for $500, but received no arms. Adjutant General Steele sent him an order for arms on certain parties at Weatherford.

July 30th.-To-day we camped at Fossil Creek, in Tarrant county. This is a, good place for collecting cretaceous fossils. We made quite a collection for the State cabinet, consisting of exogyra, ostrea, fasciolaria, inoccraneas, gryphea, scaphites, nautites, shark's teeth, and vertebra of fish.

July 31st.-Camped to-day one mile west of Fort Worth, on the West Fork of Trinity, and spent the afternoon in collecting fossils. W e found a very great number of clypeaster and ammonites.

Aug. 3d.-We reached Weatherford to-day, and found with much regret that we should be detained, and have trouble in getting up the arms scattered over Parker county. These were very necessary for us, as the Indians were threatening on the frontier, and it would be entirely unsafe for us to go there without being well armed. Collecting these detained us a week in Parker county, in which time I made what geological observations I was able, and gathered all the specimens I could for the State cabinet. This county is characterized by bold hills or mountains, which frequently rise to a great height from the level plain. They stand disconnected from each other, and have broad bases sloping to a narrow, flat top, which is covered with limestone

 

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stone rocks, gryphea, and exogyra. Mr. Joseph Jackson and I measured the height of two of these, one of which we found to be 83 feet, and the other 116 feet high.

Aug. 12th.-After very much trouble and more than a week's detention. we succeeded in collecting ten Winchester carbines in this county, belonging to the State. We now felt that, with caution, we could safely go any where we wished on the frontier. All were delighted at the prospect of visiting and examining the copper mines in the Wichita mountains; but, upon consultation, it was decided that we could not go to the mountains, and thence to Grayson county by the first of September; which time had been agreed upon for present active services with the survey to cease. Thus, most reluctantly, I had to give up, for the present, my long anticipated pleasure of examining the copper region of Texas. We took the direct route to Grayson, through Wise, Montague and Cook counties, camping fox the night on the West Fork of Trinity, in Wise Bounty. This is a new county, and is about equally divided, I should say, into timber and prairie land, which is rich and productive. The county is well watered and very healthy. It is being rapidly settled, and new improvements .are to be seen in every direction. At Decatur, the county seat, we were shown some specimens of lead ore, which had been found in the county; it will run not less than 80, or perhaps 90 per cent. of pure lead. The parties who found it would not show us the locality where they obtained it, consequently we can say nothing of the quantity. I presume that it exists only in pockets of limited extent. I should not expect to find lead existing in large deposits in Wise county. Its elements of wealth are in the rich, black soil and salubrious climate. We camped for the night on Denton creek, twelve miles northeast of Decatur. This is a rich and most beautiful portion of the county.

Aug. 14th.-We travelled over high, rolling, rich prairies .all day, and saw but little timber on our route. We camped on Spring creek, eight miles west of Gainesville. Upon this stream we found more and larger amonites than I ever saw before; some of them measuring two and a half feet in diameter.

August 15th.-We passed through Gainesville this morning, which is a beautiful, thriving little town. Cook is, in soil, one of the best counties in the State. The western portion of it is nearly all prairie, while the eastern is about

 

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equally divided between timber and prairie. The natural growth is mostly postoak, which grows to an unusually large size. In the eastern part of the county we found ferrugenous sandstone, brown hæ, and the very best quality of firestone I ever saw. Chimneys made of this stone have been exposed to hot fires for half a dozen winters, without the marks of the mason's hammer being effaced by the heat.

About sundown of this date, we arrived at Whitesboro, where Dr. Air. H. Trolinger received and entertained us most kindly. Re did every thing in his power to promote the interest of the survey. Dr. Buckley spent one day in making observations in the vicinity of Whitesboro, and found quite a number of interesting specimens belonging to the tertiary period, consisting of brown coal, iron ore, copperas and ostrea.

August 18th.-Dr. Buckley left one at Whitesboro today, with instructions to give the remainder of the time, till the first of September, to making further observations in Grayson county, around Sherman, and down the Texas Central Railway.

I parted with the Doctor and the young gentlemen of the State Geological Corps, with much regret. We had been pleasantly associated together, and our labors, I hope, will not be withouth benefit to the State. The Doctor spent neither pains nor labor to make the result of the survey interesting and useful to the people.

On this morning, at 11 o'clock, I took the stage for Sherman, at which place we arrived after a drive of four hours. Sherman is a thriving business town, of about six thousand inhabitants. With her enterprising citizens and railroad facilities, she has prospects of a bright future.

August 19th.-To-day, I went, with Mr. E. C. Ramage as guide, to examine an oil spring, which we found in a high bluff of the banks of Red River, fourteen miles northwest of Sherman, and one mile from the Rock Bluff, crossing on that river. At this spring, or sipe, the shellrock, so common in the northwest, I found overlying a soft sandstone; the former eighty feet thick, the latter twenty. The oil sipes from the crevices of the soft sandstone. The whole of the sandstone is saturated and dripping with oil. I followed the deep gorge down to where it spreads out into level ground, near the banks of the river. I found signs of a sandstone in the gorge, about one hundred yards below

 

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the first, which I believe, upon a more careful examination than I was able to make, will be found to exist. I carefully explored the banks of the river for several hundred yards, and found indications of oil at a dozen places, perhaps more. Parties living at the Bluff Rock crossing, told me, when the ground was full of water, oil sipes or springs ran from the bluffs on the Texas side of the river, every few yards, for three miles above and below the crossing. The strongest external indications exist of an immense fountain of oil in this neighborhood. I would not fail, however, to say that external indications are often deceptive in these matters, and I would advise parties not to rely on them wholly when investing their money. I would further advise that a shaft should not be sunk on the bluff above the main spring, where some parties have begun to bore; but at the mouth of the main gorge, on the level ground, near the river. I would regard the chances for piercing the main fountain much enhanced, by so doing.

August 20th.-I went to-day with some gentlemen of Sherman to examine a deposit of coal on Squirrel creek, in the neighborhood of Farmington. We found it in the dry channel of the creek, imbedded in a cretaceous formation. It is a, thin stratum of very imperfect brown coal., three inches thick and eighteen inches wide, It amounts to nothing.

We traveled over solve of the best prairie lands to-day that I have seen in Texas. This part of Grayson county is in a high state of cultivation. There were two flour mills in Farmington, which make as fine flour as is manufactured in St. Louis.

August 21st.-With Mr. F. B. Helwig as guide, I went to examine a deposit of iron ore, on Mr. Goode's land, lying twelve miles northeast of Sherman. The formation will cover an area of about five hundred acres. The ore is in irregular masses that will weigh from a few ounces to many tons each. It lies in a hill or mountain that varies in height from fifty to one hundred feet. There are three varieties of ore here; the gray ore, the brown and red hematite, with a large portion of ockre. By a proper combination of these varieties of ore, I have no doubt the most superior Bessemer steel may be manufactured. From the large amount of ochre that is connected with the ore, it may be easily smelted, and will run about forty per cent of metalic iron. The gray ore and the brown hæ lie

 

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on the south and west sides of the mountain, the red hæ on the north and east sides. The ore lies on and through a loose sand bed, consequently, quarring will cost but little. Underlying this vast bed of iron ore, is a stratum of shell limestone, twenty or thirty feet thick, from which any amount of flux may be made. Several bold chalybeate springs break out from the mountain sides, and Chocktaw creek washes the south and west base of the mountain. The mountain and valleys are covered with a dense forest of hickory and post-oak timber, from which charcoal may be obtained for half a century to come. The Transcontinental railway runs three miles south, and the Texas Central runs five miles west of the mountain.

raking into consideration all the advantages immediately connected with and surrounding this deposit of iron ore, I am free to say, I do not know of more promising place in the State to build a foundry.

August 22d.-I spent the day looking for fossils in the vicinity of Sherman, and was successful in making a good collection, consisting of scaphites, ammonites, exogyra, ostrea, plicatula, inoceramus, vertibræ of fish and shark's teeth.

August 24th.-Left Sherman this morning at three o'clock on the train, and arrived at Wortham at eleven, where I was to snake examination of a deposit of coal that had been reported to me. Afternoon, Mr. Ben Lombard, Sr., showed me two places on the prairie, about five hundred. yards apart, where he had sunk shafts, from both of which lie had obtained indications of a good quality of coal. Mr. Lombard is well acquainted with coal minim in Illinois, and he is confident of finding good coal in large quantities at this place. I hope lie may. He has bought a league of land adjoining Wortham, and he has put a cotton gin and mill, which are among the many evidences of his enterprise and public spirit.

Late in the evening, I went to examine a coal deposit on Wolf creek, about one mile from the village. It was difficult for me to tell much about it with any degree of accuracy, the stratum being exposed only in the bottom of the creek bed. From an excavation that had been made in the coal, I guessed the stratum to be four feet thick, and about ten or twelve feet below the surface of the ground. It is a good quality of brown coal. Mr. Lombard says there are several other deposits in the neighborhood, where the strata are thicker and the quality better.

 

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While looking for the coal deposit this evening, I found, in the high bank of Wolf creek, a bed of copperas. It is exposed for about fifty yards, and is, perhaps, six feet thick. It is very rich.

Wortham is on the line between the cretaceous and tertiary formations. The hills that bounded the western limits of the tertiary sea, are very prominent and well de- fined here. Tehuacana Hills, upon which the Trinity University is located, constitute a part of the same chain running northeast and southwest.

The State Geological Corps have traced the tertiary coal formations of Texas, from Bastrop, on the Colorado river, in a northeasterly direction, to a point on the Red River, twenty miles north of Paris. It lies in two strata, the first varying from ten to twenty, and the second from fifty to seventy feet below the surface of the ground. The strata vary from two to six feet each in thickness. The second stratum is always superior in quality to the first. Mr. Lombard says he has found a third stratum, which is superior to the second. We found the formation as far east as the Attoyar river, in San Augustine county, and presume it extends to the Sabine river.

Since arriving at home on the 26th of August, I have been anxious to make a short trip into eastland and adjoining counties, to make an examination of the coal formation in that section of the State, but my ditties in the Waco University, since the first of September, have been so constant and pressing that I have been, thus far, denied that pleasure.

The necessity for the trip has been, to some extent, obviated, by the fact that four wagon loads of coal, from that section, have been brought to Waco since the first of September. The first two were purchased by Mr. J. Winship for fuel to run the engine of his cotton-gin. It is a semibituminous coal, very much resembling that which I saw in the shops on the Texas Central Railway from Sherman to Corsicana, which had been shipped from the coal mines in the Indian Territory. The Texas coal. had more sulphur and slate in it than had that from the Territory, which very much impairs its caloric value. The second two loads were brought from Stephens county, near the Clear Fork of the Brazos, and bought by Mr. A. S. Foster, an intelligent, practical blacksmith, who has had large experienced in working the different varieties of Pennsylvania, West:

 

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Virginia and East Tennessee coal, in the shops of Chattanooga. He says lie is using the coal which was brought from Eastland county in his forge, and that it is equal to the best Pittsburg and West Virginia, and second only to the, Cumberland Mountain coal. Mr. Foster has kindly furnished me for the State cabinet a specimen of this Texas coal, weighing eleven pounds. This also has a small portion of sulphur and slate in it, but not enough to injure it materially. The parties who brought it to Waco told me they dug it from the bed of a creek, where it was covered with water and mud, and that they had excavated the stratum to a depth of seven feet without getting through it. The formation is about twenty feet below the surface of the ground, and three feet above the water line of the Brazos. If the outcrop, that has been subjected to the action of air and water, is as good as Mr. Foster thinks. doubtless the unexposed stratum will produce an article of coal equal to any in the world.

I have purposely avoided the use of technical terms as much as possible in my report, that it might be the snore interesting to the general reader.

Respectfully submitted.

RICHARD BURLESON, Asst. State Geologist.

 

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APPENDIX

REMARKS ON DR. ASA GRAY'S NOTES ON BUCKLEY' S NEW PLANTS OF TEXAS.

B PROF. S. B. BUCKLE Y.

In the spring of 1862, Dr. Asa Gray had two papers in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, both of which were reviews of some new plants described by me in the same publication a few months previous. I left Philadelphia prier to the appearance of Dr. Gray's papers, being employed by the Sanitary Commission at Washington to make scientific examinations and measurements of Soldiers for anthropological purposes. See Anthropological Investigations of American Soldiers, by Dr. Gould, lately published by the Sanitary Commission. At the end of the war I returned to Texas, where I have been ever since. I did not see Dr. Gray's notes till August, 1.867. I have few Botanical works here, and no Herbarium, and have delayed to notice some points in Which I think Dr. Gray has not done me justice, in hopes -to be able to have a better chance than I have here, but as time is passing I will offer what facts I have now, leaving others for another opportunity.

During 1859, '60 and '61, I made a large collection of rare plants, in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, which I had boxed and started with for the North. prior to the war. These were stopped and destroyed at Lavaca, Texas. They were intended for, and directed to, the Academy of Natural Sciences, of Philadelphia.

The few I saved I brought with me, but I found the Herbarium of the Academy not as complete as I supposed. I expected to find all the plants which Nuttall had described, as well as full collections of Wright and other

 

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botanists, who had explored Texas and other southwestern parts of our country. But these were not as full as I imagined and the Library was deficient in some works which would have aided me in my investigations. I appreciate these facts more fully now, than I did then, and can understand how very likely it is that I have made some mistakes. There are very few botanists who have not had to regret similar errors under similar circumstances. Indeed the object of this paper is to show that Dr. Gray himself has fallen into error in many particulars in the papers in which he criticises mine. For instance, Clematis Texensis, Buckley, Dr. Gray says in his "C. viorna var. coceinea, Pl. Wr. 2 p. 7, C. coccinea, Engelman." It is referred to C. viorna with the remark that its "leaves are more glaucous, and the thick sepals of a pure carmine red, very rarely purplish." I do not know that Engelman has ever published his name of C. coccinea. I believe all that has been published is in the extract quoted. If, therefore, it is, as I have no doubt the majority of botanists will agree with me that it is, a distinct species from C. viorna, my name has the right by priority of publication. It grows in the vicinity of Austin.

Zanthoxylum hirsutum Dr. Gray thinks but a variety of Z. carolinianum. There is a variety I know, and I sup-pose this is to what Dr. Gray refers. I am very familiarwith it. It is abundant in the vicinity of Austin. But this is always small, the largest specimens with a trunk rarely exceeding three inches in diameter. This was a small tree, one foot at least in diameter, and atracted my particular attention by its very peculiar ap- pearance, as I rode horseback in the vicinity of Corpus Christi. Its hairy leaves are a constant and distinctive character. I expect to get specimens again.

Ampelopsis heptaphylla Dr. Gray says is "a small leaved state of A. quinquefolia with some of the leaves 6-7 foliate." They are all, or nearly all, 7 foliate. If A. quinquefolia were known to be variable in respect of the num-ber of leaflets on the same plant, there might be room to look for a variety with another number of leaflets. But this species is noted for the regularity with which it bears five Ieaflets only, both in the north and in the south. It grows in the same locality with my A. heptaphylla, constantly with five leaflets only. But this is not all; my plant not only has 7 leaflets almost constantly, but they are smaller than A. quinquefolia, and its flowers in cymose panicles at the

 

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end of April; while A. quinquefolia has compound racemes 3-4 inches in length, and does not open its flowers till the middle or end of June.

Vitis monticola, lie says, is V. rupestris of Schule. In Plantœ Lindh. 2, p. 166, Dr. Gray himself says of V rupestris, "It does not climb, but the stems are upright, and only two or three feet in height." This is right. I am familiar with it. But my V. monticola does climb, sometimes to the height of 1.5 feet. But in addition to this there is nearly two months difference in the time of ripening of° . the fruit. All the inhabitants of this region readily dis- tinguish them as different things.

Vitis Lincecumii he refers to V. labrusca, and says that "the Louisiana specimen (of Dr. Hale) exactly agrees with what we formerly cultivated in Cambridge Bot. Garden as the Isabella grape." The Isabella grape is well known here, yet this is readily distinguished by the people of Texas, who call it the "Postoak grape." It has larger and less lobed leaves than the Isabella. The Isabella has naturally but one short bunch-this is shouldered or branching; the berries drop easily from the stems-these are strongly adherent; the skin is rather thick and the berries compara- tively large, -while these are thin-skinned and smaller. The V. labrusca is a rampant species, this rarely grows 15 feet, and often bears fruit on bush like specimens, 3-4 feet high. I have studied both species very closely, both before and since Dr. Gray's criticisms, and can have no doubt of their distinctness.

Vitis mustangensis Dr Gray says "is not the mustang grape of Florida, but is the well known V. candicans of Engelman." He asserts further that V coriacea, of Shuttleworth, is a thick-leaved form of it, the V. caribaea of Chapman, whether of DeCandolle I am still uncertain." I believe the only description of V candicans published before my description of V. mustangensis, is the following from Plant. Lindh. 2, p. 166, where Dr. Gray says, "Under the name of V candicans (N. S.) Engel. ined., I have from Lindheimer, as also from Mr. Wright, Texan specimens of what appears to be a variety of V. californica, Benth., with the leaves somewhat less dentate, and more densely tomentose underneath." Again, in Plantœ Wrightiana, p. 32, in a note at the bottom of the page, lie states, "Vitis candicans, Engel. ined., which is also the V. coriacea of Shuttleworth, Pl. Regel, ex. sic. from

 

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southern Florida, is not the same as Vitis californica. Benth., to which I was disposed to refer it in Pl. Lindh, 2. p. 166. Perhaps it may be V. cariboelig;a of D.C." If this is, as I believe, the only description of V. candicans ever published, is Dr. Gray justified in terming it "well known?" Surely Dr. Gray does not own to much acquaintance with it, and makes no allusion whatever to its native name "mustang."

Dr. Gray "warns the reader that mustang is not the name of a town or country, as the termination ensis would imply, but of a wild horse." I may add that it is also the name of a stream along which this grape grows in great abundance.

I saw Lindheimer at New Braunfels, in Texas, in 1860. He told me that Gray and Engelman, with whom he was in close correspondence, were both uncertain about this grape, and that it was still undescribed. lie regarded it as "scientifically unnamed." Tinder the rules of priority of description, I claim my name.

It is unlikely that my mustang grape is the V. coriacea of Shuttleworth, for be it remembered I had traveled extensively in Florida, and should have seen this grape there if they had been the same, but I never saw it in Florida; but the greater probability of this is that Chapman, who had resided in Florida 25 years, describes no such grape as mine, but refers the V coriacea of Shuttleworth to V. caribœa, D. C., and further says the mustang of Florida is a form of V. vulpina. See Flora of Southern States, p. 71.

Vitis bipinnata, with which name the authority of Torr. & Gray" is associated, belongs really to Wildenow.

Astragalus Brazoensis, Dr. Gray has, on a second examination, done me the justice to declare a good species.

Hoopesia arborea I am charged with "making up from a flowering specimen of Cercidum texanum, Gray, a fruiting one of Acacia flexicaulis, Benth, and a sterile branchlet of Acacia rigadula, Benth." Of course, no one would suppose I would mix plants purposely with the object of snaking a genus or species. That no such a mixture was possible, I claim from the following facts. I was careful to select a large number of specimens with both flowers and fruit on the same branches. I also cut from sprouts which grew up from the base of the tree, so that I might have all its characteristics, for I felt then that it would prove to be undescribed. I spent a long time in getting

 

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these specimens. I was then engaged with Dr. Shumard in the geological survey of the State. Drs. Shumard and Riddell were then with me,-they in a buggy, I on horseback--at Corpus Christi together, and we started next day for Austin, my press and plants in the buggy. They went on hurriedly, agreeing to change my plants. I arrived in Austin in three days after them; and found my plants mostly spoiled. I saved only a few damaged specimens of Hoopesia. Familiar as I was with them in cutting, and again in my anxiety so few days after to select from the damaged specimens the best left, I do not see the possibility of any mistake; but intend to take the first opportunity to visit again the locality, and get specimens for the Academy and other public institutions. Trees of the Hoopesia grow on the banks of the Gulf, from one to two miles below Corpus Christi.

Drejera parviflora and Morus microphylla are admitted to be good species.

Juncus finipendulus has also, since Dr. Gray's criticisms, been decided by Dr. Engelman to be a good species. But lie has changed the name, on the ground that my name is "inappropriate." My name was suggested by the thread-like hanging stems of its fruit and flowers. Even were the name less appropriate than it manifestly is, if botanists had a right to change names to accord with each compiler's sense of fitness, how many synonyms should we not have ?

Juncus diffusissimus Dr. Gray says is J. debilis. Dr. Engelman has since decided Dr. Gray to be wrong in this, but I have not Dr. Engelman's monograph by me to refer to what he decides it to be.

Cyperus Heermanii is not referred to any other species, and Eleocharis microformis, though said to be "near intermedia," is probably a good species also.

For want of books and material, as I have before remarked, I am unable to follow up these corrections fur-ther; but finding myself right in so many which I have been able to reconsider, I hope to be able to clear myself from some of the other charges in future.

Dr. Gray was particularly severe in his preliminary remarks. He accuses me of a "gross appropriation and suppression of the names of Nuttall and others, as recorded in a public herbarium." The laws of botanical nomenclature

 

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say "a name which has never been clearly defined in some public journal or work; shall be changed for the earliest name by which the object shall have thus been defined.,. See Edinburg Philosophical Jour., 1863-4. Indeed, in the language of science, plant has not been named until it has been described in some "journal. or work." One may by courtesy adopt a name he finds on a label attached to a herbarium specimen; but if in his opinion, from the smallness or imperfection of the specimen, or from other reasons, lie believes the interest of science would be served by the use of another name in his description, it is his duty to do so.

I feel that I have been wronged by Dr. Gray's personal remarks in his review of my papers. Considering such a course out of place in a scientific discussion, I have avoided anything like retaliation. But I have thought it due to me as the author, and the Academy as the publisher, of the papers criticised by Dr. Gray, that no more errors should be laid to their charge than they legitimately deserve.