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DEPARTMENT OF
AGRICULTURE, INSURANCE, STATISTICS, AND HISTORY.
JNO. E. HOLLINGSWORTH, Commissioner.

THIRD ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF TEXAS,
1891.

E. T. DUMBLE, F. G. S. A.,
STATE GEOLOGIST.

AUSTIN:

HENRY HUTCHINGS. STATE PRINTER
1892.

 

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LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL.

OFFICE OF COMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE,
INSURANCE, STATISTICS, AND HISTORY,
AUSTIN, TEAXAS, May 1, 1892.

Hon. James S. Hogg, Governor of Texas:

DEAR SIR—The Third Annual Report of the Geological and Mineralogical Survey of Texas is herewith submitted according to the requirements of law.

State Geologist E. T. Dumble has had charge of the Survey from the beginning, and the progress made from year to year, as evidenced by the reports, is justly credited to him and his assistants. The year 1891 was rather a remarkable one for the development of the State's wealth and mineral resources, as will appear from an examimation of this report.

The study of lignites, in which Texas abounds, has interested Professor Dumble for some twelve or fourteen years, and the value or utility of the same engrossed much of his time and attention in 1891. During a trip to Europe he made a thorough examination as to the use and value of lignites, which will doubtless prove a great benefit to Texas, for it will go far towards solving the question of cheap fuel, as the tests made since his return demonstrate.

The work being done in that branch of this Department is bringing to light the latent resources of the State in such a way as to convince the most skeptical of the value of the Survey, and it is no longer a question as to whether the Survey shall live, but what the appropriation shall be, and it is hoped the Legislature will act liberally in providing funds for its maintenance.

I have the honor to remain, with much respect and esteem, your obedient servant,

JNO. E. HOLLINGSWORTH,
Commissioner of Agriculture, Insurance, Statistics, and History.

 

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FINANCIAL STATEMENT.

 

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LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL.

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, INSURANCE, STATISTICS, AND HISTORY,
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF TEXAS,
AUSTIN, TEXAS, May 1, 1892
.

Hon. J. E. Hollingsworth, Commissioner of Agriculture, Insurance, Statistics, and History, Austin, Texas:

DEAR SIR—I have the honor to transmit herewith the Third Annual Report of the Geological and Mineralogical Survey of Texas.

This report contains, as far as we have been able to prepare them, the results of the work of the Survey for the year 1891. Much material, however, still remains on hand for study, and until proper determinations on it are secured final conclusions cannot be drawn in regard to many points of interest and value. Some of the determinations depend on an increase of library facilities, and others on our opportunity and ability to secure the work of specialists in certain departments of scientific work—difficulties which can only be overcome gradually.

Please accept my hearty thanks for your kindness, consideration and assistance during the progress of the work.

Yours very truly,

E. T. DUMBLE,
State Geologist.

 

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CONTENTS.

• REPORT OF STATE GEOLOGIST.
  • Introductory xvii
  • Work of the third year xvii
    • Topography xvii
    • Geology xxi
      • East Texas xxii
      • Central and West Texas xxv
      • Central Cretaceous area xxix
      • Trans-Pecos Texas xxix
      • Galveston artesian well xxxi
    • Lignite Investigation xxxii
      • European Browncoal xxxii
      • Uses of European Browncoal xxxiv
      • Comparison of European and Texas Lignites xxxix
      • Utilization of Texas Browncoal xl
    • Paleontology xlii
    • Chemical Laboratory xliii
    • Library xlvi
    • Museum xlvii
    • Co-operation with the public high schools xlvii
    • Office work xlviii
    • Publications xlix
  • Acknowledgments xlix
• REPORTS OF GEOLOGISTS.
  • Report of Mr. W. H. von Streeruwitz liii
  • Theodore B. Comstock liv
  • W. F. Cummins lv
  • W. Kennedy lviii
  • J. A. Taff lix
  • L. E. Magnenat lxi
• ACCOMPANYING PAPERS.
  • HOUSTON COUNTY, BY W. KENNEDY.
    • Introductory 5
    • Geography and Topography 5
    • General Geology 7
      • Recent 8
      • Quaternary 9
      • Miocene 14
      • Eocene 18

     

    10

    • Economic Geology—
      • Soils 22
      • Greensand marl 28
      • Iron ores 30
      • Lignites 33
      • Building stones 36
      • Clays 38
      • Timber 39
      • Water supply 39
  • SECTION FROM TERRELL TO SABINE PASS, BY W. KENNEDY.
    • Introductory 43
    • General Description—
      • Cretaceous 46
      • Eocene 47
        • Basal or Wills Point clays 47
        • Lignitic beds 50
        • Marine beds 52
      • Miocene 57
        • Lufkin or Angelina county depot 58
        • Fayette sands 60
        • Fleming beds 62
      • Pleistocene 64
      • Recent deposits 67
        • Flood plains of rivers 67
        • Coastal prairies or plains 68
        • Lacustrine formations 70
    • Details of Section—
      • From Terrell to Mineola 71
        • Grand Saline region 76
        • From Grand Saline east to Mineola 81
      • From Mineola to Tyler 84
      • From Tyler to Lufkin 90
        • Alto Section 105
        • From Alto southeast to Lufkin 108
      • From the Angelina river to Corrigan 113
      • From Corrigan to Colmesneil 116
      • From Rockland to Sabine Pass 119
    • Table of Elevations along Section 124
  • LLANO ESTACADO OR STAKED PLAINS, BY W. F. CUMMINS.
    • Origin of the name 129
    • Topography 132
      • Canyons 133
      • Sand hills 133
    • Geology-
      • Previous work 134
      • Work of the past season 135
        • Quaternary 169
        • Tertiary 170
        • Cretaceous 172
        • Triassic 174

     

    11

    • Economic Geology-
      • Water 175
        • Lakes and pools 176
        • Springs 176
        • Artesian water 177
    • Description of counties 181
      • Armstrong 181
      • Borden 181
      • Bailey 182
      • Briscoe 182
      • Cochran 183
      • Crosby 183
      • Castro 183
      • Dawson 184
      • Deaf Smith 184
      • Floyd 184
      • Gaines 184
      • Garza 185
      • Howard 185
      • Hockley 186
      • Hale 186
      • Lynn 186
      • Lamb 187
      • Lubbock 187
      • Oldham 187
      • Parmer 187
      • Potter 187
      • Randall 187
      • Swisher 188
      • Terry 188
      • Yoakum 188
      • Midland 188
      • Ector 188
      • Martin 188
    • Agriculture 190
      • Soils 190
      • Natural growth 191
      • Climate 193
        • Rainfall 194
      • Fruit growing 197
        • Vineyards 198
        • Prunes 199
      • Fuel 199
  • NOTES ON THE GEOLOGY OF THE COUNTRY WEST OF THE PLAINS
    • Tucumcari, New Mexico 201
    • Valley of the Pecos 211
      • Carboniferous 211
      • Permian 212
      • Triassic 213
      • Cretaceous 214
      • Tertiary 215

     

    12

    • Economic Geology-
      • Irrigation in thePecos valley 216
      • Soils and waters of the Pecos valley 218
  • STRATIGRAPHY OF THE TRIASSIC FORMATION IN NORTHWEST TEXAS, BY N F DRAKE
    • Introductory 227
    • Topographical features 227
    • Lithological characteristics 228
      • Sandstones 228
      • Conglomerates 228
      • Clays 229
    • Thickness and unconformability 229
    • Stratigraphy 229
      • The lower bed 231
      • The central beds 232
      • Upper beds 233
      • Dip of the formation 234
      • Springs 234
      • Deposition 234
      • Local development 235
  • REPORT ON THE PALEONTOLOGY OF THE VERTEBRATA, BY E D COPE
    • Fayette formation 251
    • Upper Cenozoic of the Staked Plains 251
      • Equus simplicidens, Cope 252
      • Creccoides osbornii, Shufeldt 253
      • Testudo turgida 255
    • On a Mesozoic Pycnodont-
      • Microdus dumbleii 256
    • Triassic or Dockum beds 257
      • Episcoposaurus haplocerus 257
  • SHELLS COLLECTED IN A DRY SALT LAKE NEAR EDDY, NEW MEXICO, BY DR V STERKI
    • List and notes 263
  • REPORTS ON THE CRETACEOUS AREA NORTH OF THE COLORADO RIVER, BY J A TAFF
    • Preface 269
      • General geologic and petrographic features 270
        • Upper Cretaceous 271
        • Lower Cretaceous 272
        • Brief Outlines of the System North of the Colorado-
          • Lower Cretaceous (Comanche) series 272
          • Upper Cretaceous series 277
    • Part I The Bosque Division-
      • Introduction 281
      • Trinity sand 282
      • Glen Rose (Alternating) bed 289
      • Paluxy sand bed 292
      • Detailed section of the Bosque division 294
        • The Colorado section 295

         

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        • Bosque section 301
        • Hood County section 307
        • Correlation with other sections 311
        • The columnar sections 313
        • Bosque and associated rocks at St Joe, Montague county 319
        • The Bosque division and associated rocks west of the main Cretaceous border 320
        • Correlation of the Trinity, Glen Rose and Paluxy beds 323
    • Part II The Lampasas-Williamson Section-
      • Introduction 326
      • Stratigraphical geology 327
        • Carboniferous basin at Lampasas 327
        • Topography of the Paleozoic floor west of Lampasas 327
        • Hydrography 330
      • Bosque division 335
        • Trinity sand 335
        • Glen Rose (Alternating) beds 336
        • Paluxy sand 338
      • Fredericksburg division 338
        • Texana limestone 338
        • Comanche Peak limestone 340
        • Caprina limestone 340
        • Flag limestone 343
        • Austin marble 343
        • Kiamitia clay 344
      • Washita division 345
        • Fort Worth limestone 345
        • Arietina clay 347
        • Volalimestone 348
      • Upper Cretaceous series 349
        • Red River (Lower Cross Timbers) division 349
        • Eagle Ford shales 350
        • Austin limestone 350
        • Blue (Ponderosa) marl 354
      • Columnar sections 359
      • Post-Cretaceous deposits-
        • Drift of the high land 363
        • Second bottoms 365
      • Economic Geology-
        • Artesian water 366
        • Soils 373
  • TRANS-PECOS TEXAS, BY W H VON STREERUWITZ
    • Geology 383
    • Mining 387
    • Hazel mine 387

 

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ILLUSTRATIONS.

• • PLATE I. View of Silver Falls, Crosby county.
  • II. Map of Houston county.
  • III. View of scarp of Staked Plains, at Blanco canyon.
  • IV. Map of the Staked Plains.
  • V. Triassic sections.
  • VI. View of Palo Duro canyon.
  • VII. View of Mount Blanco.
  • VIII. Diagrammatic section of the Cretaceous system.
  • IX. Colorado section.
  • X. Map of the Cretaceous area north of the Colorado river.
  • XI. Bosque section.
  • XII. Hood County section.
  • XIII. Hiner-St. Joe section.
  • XIV. Lampasas-Williamson section.
  • XV. Progress map.
  • XVI. Hazel Mine sections.
  • FIG. 1. Houston county sections 7
  • 2. Bluffs of Houston county 15
  • 3. Section showing irregular deposition of sand and gravel 64
  • 4. Section of well at Mineola 82
  • 5. Deposits of sand and clay 110
  • 6. Polk County limestone 115
  • 7. Section from Eddy to top of Staked Plains 161
  • 8. Sterculia drakei, sp. nov 210
  • 9. Topographic phases of Trinity, Glen Rose and Paluxy rocks 292
  • 10. Section showing relations of Blue Marl, drift and river silt 366

ERRATA.

• • Page 205, foot note: For "Silliman," read "American."
  • Page 271, line 24: Omit "Wanting."

 

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GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF TEXAS.
REPORT OF THE STATE GEOLOGIST
FOR
1891.

 

16

 

 

THIRD
ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF TEXAS.

E. T. Dumble, State Geologist.

INTRODUCTORY.

In accordance with the original plans of the Survey, while keeping steadily in view the economic features, the first year of each biennial term is devoted mainly to stratigraphical geology. Therefore the report of the work which has been done in the year just closing will deal largely with the details and descriptions of the character and extent of the rock material of the different formations over which we have worked, although many very important facts regarding the resources of the regions will also be presented for the first time.

WORK OF THE THIRD, YEAR.

TOPOGRAPHY.

The lack of accurate maps, which has been a great disadvantage to the Survey since its commencement, is being supplied as rapidly as possible by the work of the United States Geological Survey, the. United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, and by our own field parties. There is, however, very much yet to be done in this direction, owing to the great area covered by the State; and several portions of Texas, of which it is necessary to know the accurate topography before certain important geological questions can be satisfactorily settled, lie outside the present limits in which the United States Surveys are able to work, and are too large a task to be undertaken by this Survey under the present appropriations. For this reason general conclusions must sometimes be made on data which are not as complete as they should be, and in consequence the details, when determined, may prove the real conditions to be somewhat different from our present understanding of

 

18

them. Every season adds its increasing increment, however, and it is believed that the work now being carried on by the United States Geological Survey in three different portions of the State, by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey on the Rio Grande border, together with such work as our own field parties can accomplish, will in a short while give us the means for all such determinations.

CO-OPERATION OF THE UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.

The following report of the work done by the United States Geological Survey during the year 1891 was kindly furnished by Mr. R. U. Goode:

The appropriation bill for the United States Geological Survey for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1892, provided that the amount appropriated for topography should be expended in equal parts, one-half east and one-half west of the 100th meridian.

Thus for topographical purposes there are two general branches, separated by the 100th meridian and independent of each other—the eastern under Mr. Henry Gannett, and the western under Professor A. H. Thompson.

According to this division of the United States, Texas is apportioned in approximately equal parts to the two topographic branches as above described.

For administrative purposes these branches are-divided into various divisions, the divisions again subdivided into sections, and in turn a section may consist of several parties.

In this way the eastern part of Texas is attached to the Central Division of the Eastern Branch, and the portion west of the 100th meridian constitutes the Texas Division of Western Branch of Topography.

The Central Division is under Mr. John H. Renshawe, Geographer, and the Texas Division is under Mr. R. U. Goode, Geographer. In the former division there was a small amount of work done in Texas by a party temporarily detailed from Arkansas Section under Mr. George T. Hawkins, Topographer. This work consisted in running several careful lines along various railroads in Cherokee, Smith, Anderson, Houston, Angelina and Nacogdoches counties.

These lines were connected with the astronomical station of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey at Jacksonville, were checked by numerous observations for azimuth, and when completed served the purpose

 

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of furnishing control-that is, fixing position on earth's surface— of three atlas sheets in that vicinity, a portion of two of which was mapped in 1889.

The Texas Division as organized during the past field season was divided into two sections:

• 1. The Eastern Section, which consisted of four parties, as follows:
  • (a) Topographical party No. 1, under H. S. Wallace, Topographer, with E. McL. Long as assistant.
  • (b) Topographical party No. 2, under R. O. Gordon, Topographer, with Charles B. Green as assistant.
  • (c) Triangulation party under Charles F. Urquhart, Topographer, with Jeff. D. Reagan as assistant.
  • (d) Level party, under Perry Fuller, Assistant Topographer, with R. B. Robertson as rodman.
• 2. The Trans-Pecos Section, which consisted of two parties:
  • (a) Topographical party under W. H. Herron, Topographer, with John McConn as assistant, and
  • (b) Triangulation party under R. U. Goode, Geographer, with Joseph Jacobs as assistant.

The triangulation party in Trans-Pecos Section was only in field about a month, having in that time completed triangulation sufficient to control the four sheets forming the square degree 31°-32°and 105°- 106°, after which the party was disbanded, Mr. Jacobs reporting to Mr. Herron as an additional assistant, and Mr. Goode resuming his executive duties.

The parties of Texas Division as above organized were in the field from the latter part of May until the first week in November, during which time four sheets—Roby, Sweetwater, Fort McKavett, Rock Springs, and a portion of a fifth, Brackettville, were mapped, all being adjacent to and immediately west of the 100th meridian, and comprising parts of the following counties:

Stonewall, Fisher, Nolan, Coke, Schleicher, Sutton, Edwards and Kinney.

All of the work done in Trans-Pecos Texas was in El Paso county and consists of the sheets Sierra Blanca and Sierra Prieta, these being full sheets and forming the eastern half of the square degree 31°-32° and 105°-106°, and El Paso, Fort Hancock and Rio Grande sheets,

 

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which are fractional, the Rio Grande crossing them and dividing their area between the United States and Mexico.

At the end of the general field season in November, when the majority of the force proceeded to Washington, D. C., for office work, a small party under E. McL. Long, Assistant Topographer, with Jeff. D. Reagan as assistant, was organized and continued in the field for the purpose of completing Brackettville sheet and surveying sheet immediately north, which work will be completed sometime in the spring.

The El Paso sheet was surveyed by Mr. Joseph Jacobs in the spring (1891) before the regular parties were organized.

Thus the total output in Texas for the season 1891-92 will consist of six complete sheets near the 100th meridian, and five sheets, two complete and three partial, in Trans-Pecos region, the whole amounting to about 9,720 square miles, as follows:

The above together with area surveyed in previous years constitutes forty-eight atlas sheets, covering about fifty thousand square miles of territory, or nearly one-fifth the entire area of Texas.

The scale for the field work on sheets mapped last season was mile and half to one inch, with exception of El Paso sheet, which was worked on the scale of two miles to one inch, and the scale of publication will be 1:125,000, or about two miles to one inch. The contour interval is 25 feet except in such localities where a 50 foot interval was sufficient to show the, detailed topography.

 

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In addition to the sheets mentioned in the Second Annual Report, the following have been published:

Dallas, Fort Worth, Cleburne, Weatherford, Palo Pinto, Eastland and Hayrick, and the following have been engraved and are ready to print: Waco, San Angelo, Albany, Eden, Ballinger, Abilene and Anson.

CO-OPERATION OF THE UNITED STATES COAST AND GEODETIC
SURVEY.

Captain Stelman Forney, of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, had charge of the party at work in the Rio Grande, and he is now engaged in extending the line southward from El Paso toward Presidio.

WORK OF THE STATE SURVEY.

The United States Geological Survey having undertaken the topographic mapping of Trans-Pecos Texas, Professor Streeruwitz was enabled to use his party on some points of special interest in connection with the geology and mineral resources of the region. This included a survey of certain portions of the Carrizo, Diabolo and Quitman mountains, including the Hazel mine and accompanying vein deposits of copper ores.

Dr. Comstock's party, in making the trip from San Angelo southward to Eagle Pass, and from that point to Gillespie county, secured all of the topography possible along their route, connecting their line of levels and transit line with their work of the previous year, both on leaving and returning.

Professor Cummins' party also secured some details of topography along their line of sections around and over the Staked Plains.

GEOLOGY.

In May and June the parties took the field, under instructions which have been faithfully and efficiently carried out, and which have resulted in securing information of greatest value to the State. The work, as outlined in the instructions given, was intended to furnish material for a more specific subdivision of the various formations into terranes, and to assist in the correlation of the deposits as they occurred in different portions of the State, as well as the further determination of the economic possibilities of each terrane as a basis for the work of next year.

 

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One general problem was given each party—the study of water supply, both surface and artesian.

The map accompanying this report gives the general route of each field party.

EAST TEXAS.

The report of Dr. Penrose on the Tertiary deposits of the Gulf Coast gave us the broader characteristics of that formation with admirable clearness, and with such exactness that no great change has been found necessary. It was, however, considered desirable to subdivide the Timber Belt and Fayette beds into such terranes as might be recognizable at this time in order that the horizons of the various clays, lignites, greensand marls, iron ores, etc., might be definitely determined, and time saved in the detailed study of the resources of the formation. This detailed study and subdivision was also very important to enable us to ascertain more positively the conditions of the artesian water supply. In order that there might be no confusion of ideas regarding these horizons, Messrs. Taff, Kennedy and Walker first made an examination of the Cretaceous-Tertiary contact in company, and a brief inspection of the Basal Clays as well. Messrs. Walker and Kennedy then made a trip from Terrell to Tyler, across the Basal Clays to the Timber Belt beds, and then each of the three took up his separate line of section. These sections were made, using the levels of various lines of railroads as a base for obtaining elevations, supplemented by transit lines and lines of levels when necessary. In this way only could we secure sufficiently accurate sections without topographical maps.

Mr. Kennedy was given the eastern and by far the longest line of section. It began at Terrell, in Kaufman county, and followed the line of the Texas and Pacific Railway, via Wills Point to Mineola, the International and Great Northern Railroad via Tyler, Jacksonville, Trinity and Corrigan to Colmesniel, and the Sabine and East Texas Railroad to the Gulf at Sabine Pass.

Mr. Walker's section was west of the Colorado river, taking the line of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad from Cameron to Galveston as a base.

Mr. Taff began at Corpus Christi and followed the line of the Texas-Mexican Railroad to Laredo, the International and Great Northern Railway to Cotulla; thence west to Carrizo Springs, and up the Nueces and Leona rivers to Uvalde, where he reached the Cretaceous again.

 

23

This gives three complete sections across the Tertiary and. Quaternary deposits of the Gulf Coast in addition to those already made by Dr. Penrose and myself, and will enable us to differentiate the formations much more closely than has heretofore been possible.

In addition to the work of these sections, Mr. Kennedy made a detailed study of Houston county, and Mr. Walker a similar study of Washington county and various separated localities of interest.

The Basal Clays have been extended by this season's work to cover Tertiary materials lying below the beds first described, thus adding considerably to their thickness. The Timber Belt beds, which are in great part at least of Claiborne age, as determined by their fossil contents, have been more fully studied, but as yet no final divisions are made in them, and it will require detailed study over a wider area before this can be done satisfactorily. This is rendered necessary by the character of the materials, which are largely uncompacted, and the manner of their deposition, which was often in bays or coastal lagoons, as well as by the fact that the present comparatively level surface of the area occupied by them affords few opportunities for sections of any considerable -length. It may be found practicable, on further investigation, not only to make such divisions as alternating lignite and iron deposits, but also to combine the upper members of the Timber Belt beds and lower part of the Fayette beds into a division representative of the Oligocene, or Jackson of Alabama.

The character of the Miocene, to which the Fayette beds have been referred, has been studied and many new facts obtained, including several localities of fossil beds containing casts of a bivalve which Dr. W. H. Dall considers to be possibly aMacoma. The specimens occurring at the base of the sandstone are, however, very imperfect.

Overlying these Fayette beds, and stretching still further to the north and west, are the deposits of gravel and sand. In places these are mixed with clay, especially in the eastern half of the State, but to the west a calcareous material takes the place of the clay and forms a conglomerate, which caps even the higher Cretaceous hills as far west as Del Rio, and is found in all the canyons making up into the plateau country. In places this calcareous deposit takes the form of beds of limestone, one of which was described by Dr. Penrose under the name Reynosa beds. I have intended the name to cover the entire division. This may also include the Texas representatives of the Orange sands,

 

24

or Lafayette formation as it is now known, which have been up to this time classed as Quaternary byus.

The beds which we have classed as Quaternary are the materials corresponding to the Lafayette formation in Eastern Texas and the overlying Coast Clays. Above these come the deposits of the present rivers and gulf coast.

The section of the artesian well at Galveston, which is now over 2400 feet in depth, gives an idea of the thickness of the deposits and of some of the Tertiary as well:

The fossils found at 2300 feet are those of Burleson shell bluff, which is practically in the direct line of dip from Galveston, distant 140 miles, with a difference in elevation not exceeding 350 feet, which would give these beds the average dip of 18 feet per mile.

In this area the wide spread character of the lignite beds has been clearly demonstrated, new and valuable deposits of iron ores located, the position of many valuable beds of clays, diatomaceous earth, greensand marls and building stones determined, and the salt deposits have been more clearly defined and described.

The artesian water conditions are found to be favorable over a large district, but the wide spread character of the gravel and accompanying sands of the southwestern portion of the State prevented our getting the necessary information in that region to enable us to speak positively as to the likelihood of flowing wells, as we had hoped to do.

The character of the soils of this area, with a few exceptions in East Texas, has not been properly appreciated. Many of them are of excellent quality, and by proper drainage and cultivation will yield large returns to agriculture: They are now being studied in the laboratory, preparatory to a classification according to their origin and present qualities

The greensands have had special attention. Where they have been tried by farmers they have fully borne out all the claims which have

 

 

25

been made for them by the Survey. Thus practical agriculture again proves the value of chemical analysis as a basis for restoring the fertility of the soil.

CENTRAL AND WEST TEXAS.

To secure definite information regarding the country west of the S100th meridian, twAo sections were made, both starting from the vicinity of San Angelo. Dr. Comstock and party made a close instrumental section southward, through Schleicher, Sutton, Val Verde, Kinney and Maverick counties, to the Rio Grande; thence northward, through Uvalde, Edwards, Bandera, Kerr and Gillespie, connecting again with his work of last year.

Professor Cummins followed the Cretaceous escarpment west from San Angelo until he reached the Staked Plains. After some local studies, he took his party northward along the foot of the Plains to the line of the Fort Worth and Denver Railroad. Turning westward he crossed over into New Mexico, and after examinations of the geology of certain sections, turned south and followed the valley of the Pecos river to Pecos City, having thus completely circled the Staked Plains.

The object of these sections, as stated in my letters of instructions, were:

A more accurate knowledge of the condition. of the northern scarp of the Cretaceous table lcaa and its relations to the underlying formations; stratigraphy of the Cretaceous, and manner of disappearance northward under the Plains formation; geology, agriculture, grazing, forest and water conditions of the Staked Plains; character of the Cretaceous table land with its general geology, agricultural, grazing and water conditions; the extension of the Silurian geanticlinal south-west, and its relation to the Cretaceous north and south of its manifestation; the stratigraphy of the southwestern Cretaceous, and the determination of the probable thickening of that formation toward.the south and west; the character and effect oft the basaltic eruptions, the presence or absence of beds of the Upper Cretaceous superimposed on those of the Lower in the table land; mineral resources and artesian water conditions of this region.

This work gives a connected section from the Canadian river to the Rio Gran-de, and the results furnish-us a volume of. information concerning the general, geology, and in regard. to thp water supply and other conditions of this hitherto little known region.

 

26

In addition to this I made a detailed section along the Rio Grande, from Del Rio to Eagle Pass, in the greater part of which I had the assistance of Mr. J. Owen.

From Uvalde Mr. Taff took up the study of the Cretaceous, tracing the partings of the limestone and Ponderosa marl from that point to Austin.

By the work we have done the boundary of the Staked Plains is described, and its topographic features clearly stated. The strata covering the surface are all found to be of later Tertiary age, certainly not earlier than the Loup Fork beds, and probably Pleistocene in part. These beds thicken toward the northwest, and at the northern scarp of the Plains rest directly upon rocks of Triassic age. The Triassic rocks underlie the Plains material as far south as the thirty-third degree of latitude, or a little lower, beyond which point a thin series of the Cretaceous rocks, thickening towards the south, appears between the Triassic and Blanco Canyon beds.

On the western side of the Plains the erosion of the Pecos river has cut through the Plains material and underlying formations to its present channel. The determination of the Cretaceous age of the Tucumcari beds, and that these beds are higher in that system than the Caprina limestone, and occur without any recognizable beds of the Fredericksburg, or older Cretaceous, below them, is of considerable scientific value. The same fact was observed along the entire western side of the Plains. The age of the deposits as here given are fully proven by the fossils obtained from them.

South of the Staked Plains lies an elevated Cretaceous table land, rising from the surrounding country both on the north and south by a steep escarpment. The rocks of this plateau are of Lower Cretaceous age, and passing from east to west its lower beds are in contact successively with those of Cambrian, Silurian, Carboniferous, Permian and Triassic age. Passing south to the Rio Grande, successively higher Cretaceous beds are encountered, thickening rapidly and overlapping like shingles upon a roof. The same relations are apparent in higher beds down the Rio Grande from Del Rio to Eagle Pass. The presence of a pre-Cretaceous fold, which has had a marked influence upon the deposits of that age and upon the subsequent topography and drainage of the State, is determined, as well as the fact that the later basaltic

 

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outflows have frequently used the lines of weakness in the trend of the disturbance which formed the fold.

The topographic features of the plateau have been studied, and the difference due to different geologic structure in the river system of the plateau and those lying north of the fold clearly shown.

Much information regarding the basaltic outflow was obtained, but is not yet thoroughly worked out. The present indications are, that they began towards the west, during the Lower Cretaceous period, and continued in operation until the middle of the Upper Cretaceous, possibly extending gradually eastward or northeastward during the time.

Between Del Rio and Eagle Pass—or more properly speaking, Webb Bluff, some forty miles below that city—we have a section of the Upper Cretaceous series which is somewhat different in character from that of the Central Texas area. The Fish beds of the latter are here represented by the Val Verde Flags, a series of limy flags and clays having a thickness of some six hundred feet. The overlying Pinto limestones, which compare in every way with the Austin limestone, are also much more strongly developed, and give a section of some fifteen hundred feet. But the greatest difference is to be observed in the beds which overlie these. Their development is so great that I have placed them in a separate division, and called it the Eagle Pass Division. The two lower members of the division, the Upson clays and San Miguel sands, are represented in the Central Texas section by the Blue or Ponderosa marl and the Navarro or Glauconitic beds, respectively, as fully determined by the fossils found in them; but so far nothing corresponding to the Coal series and Escondido beds (Marine Cretaceous), which overlie these on the Rio Grande, have been recognized in the Colorado section. The total thickness of the'different beds is over five thousand feet, if the average dip of one hundred feet per mile, which has been proved above Eagle Pass, holds good for the portion of the section below that point. Proceeding southeast toward the Gulf we find these beds directly overlaid by deposits of Eocene and later age.

The water supply of the Plains was fully investigated, and it was found that although there is no hope of obtaining artesian water, except in rare instances, the supply to be had in wells is practically unlimited. These wells vary in depth from twenty feet to three hundred feet, according to localities. The springs and streams find their supply from the same source as that of the wells. West of the Plains water is easily

 

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obtained in shallow wells, while along the Pecos, on the eastern side of the Guadalupe mountains, the supply is abundant, and in places artesian flows can be secured. The only minerals of the Plains are the gypsum and salt. The soils are of great fertility, and the rainfall, although not so abundant as it is further east, is nevertheless fully sufficient to mature good crops in most seasons, for the reason that it falls during the time at which it can be of most service—in the summer.

Perhaps one of the most useful results of the season's work is the demonstration of the agricultural capacity of the Plateau region in which the valley soils, which cover a large area in the aggregate, are not only excellently adapted for tillage, but are so situated that they can be irrigated in many places from the abundant supply of water that was found to exist at no great depth below the surface, "which appears to be a vast body of underground water lying like an overflowing lake beneath this great divide." The great value of the determination of this immense water supply underlying the Staked Plains and the Plateau, which is accessible by wells over so wide an area, and breaks out in bold and never-failing springs in so many places, is so self-evident that words could not enhance it.

The more barren highlands are well adapted for sheep raising, while the pecan growth of the southward flowing river valleys is of such extent and character as to furnish the basis for a great industry in itself.

The mineral resources of the plateau are confined to ochres, kaolin, lime and cement materials and building stones.

The principal economic materials of the Cretaceous region south of the plateau are the coal, asphaltum, clays and artesian water. The Eagle Pass coal basin has been described previously. The northern outcrop of the coal seam has now been traced and mapped, and its relations to the underlying and overlying materials studied in such a manner that they can be used as indicators of its presence and its approximate depth at any given point, or its entire absence.

The asphaltum deposits which were described by Mr. Owen in the First Report of Progress, have been examined, first by the party under Dr. Comstock and afterward more in detail by Mr. F. S. Ellsworth, and my first statements regarding their character and value verified and enlarged. They are much more extensive than has previously been suspected.

 

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CENTRAL CRETACEOUS AREA.

Having completed his work on the Tertiary section, I gave Mr. Taff the study of a strip of Cretaceous, beginning at the Carboniferous-Cretaceous contact in Lampasas county, crossing the formation to the Creatceous-Tertiary contact in Williamson country. This had for its object a clearer definition of our Cretaceous in a typical section, and especially the relation of the stratigraphical and economic conditions of the formation.

From the study of widely separated sections some complications has arisen and an uncertainity as to the relations of certain beds of the formation. A very careful study was, therefore, made of the lower beds from Red River to Austin and the exact relationshiop determined. This work, as will be seen from the paper accompanying this report, developed the fact that the Alternatingf beds of our Colorado section, as previously published, are in fact an intergral part of the Trinity sands of the same section, and are overlaid by a second serioes or continuation of the same sand, the Pauxy. Its extent and charcter warrant the giving to it of a divisional name, and we haver therefore called it the Bosque Division, and include in it the Trinity sands, Alternation beds and Paluxy beds.

The work on th Lampasas-Williamson section was also of great value stratigraphically. Horizons not previously observed in this section were found and studied, and in many cases their exact areal extent within the section mapped. The artesian water conditions were determined and the results appear in the accompanying report. The results are such as will make the further study of the Cretaceous and its resources musch simpler thant it has been.

TRANS-PECOS TEXAS

In this district, through the work of Professor W. H. Streeruwitz and his party, the rocks of Carboniferous age, which had been previously described, have been traced and mapped over a large area; the age and relations of certain conglomerates, which have been a disturbing element in the study of the region, have been decided; the exact stratigraphic relationship between the schists and the red grit has been determined, through sections fortunately laid open by the torrential rain storm which occurred in the latter part of the summer. Some fossils have been secured, which although badly preserved, will, it is

 

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hoped, give an idea as to their geologic age. The extent of the crystalline schists, which near Eagle Flat are associated with strongly metamorphosed cherty limestones, true marbles, etc., 'is found to be much greater than was suspected. This is the series of rocks which I suggested in the First Annual Report were probably the equivalents of the Texas system of the Central Mineral District.

MINERALS.—The ore-bearing character of the Carrizo mountains is fully proved-magnetic iron, copper and lead ores, with silver and gold, having been found, and good results shown wherever prospecting has been done. The Hazel mine was carefully studied, as being the best developed property in the district, and the report contains a description showing the amount and character of work which has been done in it. The production has already exceeded $60,000 although very little stoping has been done. The fine marbles of this range will some day attract the attention they so richly deserve.

WATER SUPPLY.—The first requisite to the proper development of Trans-Pecos Texas is an adequate and constant water supply. Professor Streeruwitz, in every report he has made, from the beginning of the Survey, has urged this matter strenuously, showing that wells or streams could not be depended on, and that the storage of water in reservoirs was the only practical way of accomplishing this end. 'He also shows that the character of the topography and the rock formation is such that there are many places at which storage reservoirs could be built at moderate cost, which would be suitably located for irrigating large bodies of very fertile lands, or for use in mining operations, or. for the raising of stock. His own observations, as well as those of the government observers at Fort Davis and Fort Bliss, prove that the annual rainfall is sufficient to give an adequate supply for all these purposes if it is properly cared for. The greatest obstacle to be overcome is the fact of the larger part of the lands being sectionized, and the alternating sections belonging to the State and railroads respectively; so that no one could get a sufficient amount of land in a body to warrant the expenditure necessary for building a dam.

During my visit to his camp in the Diabolo mountains, last summer, this matter was one of the most constant discussion, and it finally occurred to me that there might be a possibility of the inauguration of this work by the State, provided locations could be found which would be entirely on the State lands, and that it would be possible to utilize

 

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convict labor in building the dams and in the necessary preparations for irrigation. The State, in its various branches of University, Public School, Asylum and unoccupied lands, is most largely interested in this section. These lands are practically valueless in their present waterless condition, whereas, with such a supply of water as can be secured by this means they can be made to "blossom as the rose," and made to support a large population and remunerate the State a thousand fold for the outlay necessary for their reclamation.

Upon my return to Austin the matter was referred to the Commissioner, Mr. Hollingsworth, and Governor Hogg, and instructions were given us to ascertain whether suitable localities could be found affecting only State lands.

Some difficulty was experienced in locating such corners as would show that the land was all undoubtedly public land, but there are places, without doubt, in the region northeast of Van Horn, which will afford suitable localities for such reservoirs.

Major Powell, Director of the United States Geological Survey, has promised not only to designate such localities as may be found by the topographic parties at work in the district, but also to estimate cubical contents, height of dam and other details, thereby greatly facilitating our work.

THE GALVESTON ARTESIAN WELL.

The city of Galveston having decided to bore an artesian well to a depth of three thousand feet, I considered it of highest importance to secure an accurate record of the boring with specimens of all the materials penetrated. I therefore commissioned Mr. J. A. Singley to watch the progress of the well and take specimens of the materials as they came out together with all the fossils he could secure. During the entire boring he was present night and day, taking specimens every few feet, or as often as the materials changed. By this means we have secured as exact a record as is possible from a well sunk by this system, and the information obtained will be of great value in the work of the Survey. The well was not completed at the close of the year, but from an examination of the fossils found in the lower stratum we ascertained that they were in beds belonging to the Eocene or Lower Tertiary and that, judging from our section on the Brazos river, it would not be very far to the Cretaceous rocks. The observations will be continued until the completion of the well.

 

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LIGNITE INVESTIGATION.

In consequence of my previous investigations and reports on this subject and the urgent need for a cheaper fuel for the development of manufactures in a large portion of the State, an appropriation was made at the regular session of the Twenty-second Legislature "to examine and test the quality and value and best method of utilizing the various kinds of lignite in this State."

In pursuance of this law, under the instructions of Hon. Jno. E. Hollingsworth, Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics and History, I went to Europe and examined the various deposits of lignite or browncoal and the processes by which they were utilized.

At the International Congress of Geologists held in Washington, D. C., in August, I met many European geologists who gave me much information and assistance in this work.

During my stay in Germany I made Halle, a. S. my headquarters, that being the center of the greatest browncoal deposit of Germany. From this point I visited the various mines and factories of the province of Saxony, and also those of the Rhine provinces. In Austria I visited the mines and factories of Styria. and Bohemia. I was everywhere accorded the fullest opportunity for securing the information of which I was in search, and which could only have been gotten by just such personal examination as I made, and could not by any possible means have been secured by correspondence in so detailed and'exact a degree.

The general facts as submitted in my preliminary report are again given herewith.

EUROPEAN BROWNCOAL.

The browncoal of Europe may be divided into four general classes, viz: 1, Lignite; 2, Common Browncoal; 3, Pech Coal; 4, Glance Coal—all of which have representatives in Texas.

LIGNITE.

In Germany and Austria this term is only used to designate such fossil fuel as fully retains its woody character and fiber. It is usually found accompanying other varieties of browncoal, and consists of those fragments of the original woody material from which the beds were formed that have escaped maceration and decomposition. In some places, however, when conditions were favorable to its preservation it forms the main body of the deposit. Sometimes it occurs

 

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surrounded by earthy browncoal, and often has particles of fatty browncoal or jet inclosed with it, following the rings of growth. Much of it as it comes from the mine retains its form and character so completely as to be almost indistinguishable from the ordinary wood of the present time, except that it is somewhat darker in color.

COMMON BROWNCOAL.

This name covers a number of varieties, varying in color from yellow to brownish black, and from those having a specific gravity less than water to those of 1.2 and 1.3. Their common qualities are their large percentage of water and their earthy, friable nature. The two most important of these varieties are "Schweelkohl" and Earthy Browncoal.

SCHWEELCOAL.—This variety, in its purest form, resembles a yellow clay much more closely than it does coal. Its composition and character, as revealed by chemical analysis and the microscope, vary somewhat from the other browncoals, and it is the variety which has the least specific gravity. It is the richest in tarry matter, and is therefore especially desirable for the manufacture of paraffine and oils. It occurs most frequently with earthy browncoal and often in alternating layers with that variety.

EARTHY BROWNCOAL.—This variety of browncoal is, as its name indicates, of an earthy character, brown to brownish black in color, in its ordinary condition containing as much as forty-five or even fifty per cent of moisture. While it somewhat resembles our Texas browncoal, especially in the fatty streaks which occur in it, the German is much more friable than ours and also much inferior to it in heating value in the raw state on account of the great percentage of water it contains. This is the character of browncoal that is found most largely developed in the district around Halle, a. S., and in the Rhine provinces. Much of it lies very near the surface, in beds varying from a few inches to sixty feet in thickness, and is most often mixed with Schweelcoal to a greater or less extent. From this variety of browncoal is manufactured the "nass-press-stein" and browncoal briquettes without bond.

PECH COAL.

A darker and firmer variety of browncoal, which contains a smaller amount of water, and which often closely resembles pitch both in color and fracture, is called Pech coal. The coal of the Bohemian basins is

 

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very largely a mixture of common browncoal (of somewhat drier than the German) and Pech coal, together with some lignit is the equivalent of the larger part of our Texas deposits.

GLANCE COAL.

This is the finest variety of lignitic or browncoal, in certain instances passing into jet. It occurs principally in Styria with varieties of browncoal, although smaller quantities occur in many localities.

These varieties are again subdivided into minor divisions, and they pass by insensible gradations one into the other, frequently in one and the same bed.

STATISTICS.

The following statistics, taken from the government reports of the empires of Germany and Austria, show to what extent these browncoals were used during the year 1890:

This amount, over three hundred thousand car loads, is nearly thirty per cent of the entire coal (stone coal and browncoal) production of these empires, which was (for 1890) 104,702,370 tons. Of the amount of browncoal mined, the district around Halle, Germany, and Bohemia and Styria, in Austria, produced eighty per cent.

The amount of brown coal used in the manufacture of briquettes, coal bricks, tar, paraffine, etc., during the year was a little less than seven million tons, and the remainder —over twenty-three million tons— used "raw," or just as it came from the mine, without preparation of any kind.

USES OF EUROPEAN BROWNCOAL.

As has already been stated in our circular No. 8 and in the s reports of this Survey, the uses of browncoal are as varied, general and

 

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important as those of stone coal. The results of my personal investigations not only fully confirm the statements made heretofore by myself and other members of the Survey, in regard to the availability of the Texas browncoal for fuel purposes, but add greatly to them.

LIGNITE.

When lignite is found in sufficient quantity, it is charred in meilers, kilns or retorts, in the same manner as ordinary wood, and yields a charcoal of similar quality, and equally suitable for all fuel purposes. Thus, in lower Styria, where it occurs in great quantities as a part of a browncoal deposit, having a total thickness of over three hundred feet, it is charred in ovens arranged for the recovery of the by-products as well as the charcoal. The charcoal made here is used in iron smelting.

Where the lignite occurs in smaller quantities, as in the province of Saxony and on the Rhine, it is used with the browncoals under steam boilers and for various other fuel purposes.

COMMON BROWNCOAL.

The Schweelcoal, as has already been stated, contains large amounts of tarry matter, and for this reason is especially desired by the Schweeleries or factories, which manufacture from it the tar and its derivatives, paraffine and oils of various grades. These oils vary in quality from one especially adapted for the manufacture of gas for lighting purposes, through heavy and light oils to a solar oil about equivalent to our best refined petroleum. While the introduction of American and Russian petroleum into Germany has in some measure checked the working of the Schweeleries for oil purposes, the demand for paraffine is so great as to keep the factories still at full work. This industry, as shown by the statistics given, is one of great importance to these districts of Germany, amounting as it does to over four millions of dollars annually and giving employment to. several thousand men. The records of the German Browncoal Association show that in the year 1890 the amount of browncoal used by the companies belonging to the association for the manufacture. of tar and paraffine was over twenty millions hectolitres, and the value of the product seventeen million one hundred and twenty thousand marks ($4,280,000). The coke made from the Schweelcoal by this process is called "grude coke," and experience has proved it to be such an excellent fuel for household purposes that the demand is in excess of the supply. It is used

 

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in stoves of special construction for cooking and heating. It is of too fine a grain and not compact enough to be of any use in smelting iron.

The earthy browncoal is used "raw," or as it is mined, for household, manufacturing, or steam purposes, and is also manufactured into nass-press-stein and briquettes.

Nass-press-stein, or coal bricks, are made by mixing the browncoal with water until it is of a putty-like consistency, compressing by machinery similar to that used in making pressed brick, and then drying these brick in the air. While the amount of this fuel is small in comparison with that of briquettes made by the dry method, it is nevertheless a useful and serviceable fuel for household purposes.

Dry briquettes, made from this variety of browncoal, are in great demand, and the output is increasing yearly. The process of manufacture consists of drying the browncoal by one of the several methods until the water contained in it is reduced to a certain percentage and then compressing it under a pressure equal to that of fifteen hundred to two thousand atmospheres. The resulting briquette is of a lozenge or elliptical shape, some six inches in length and about one inch in thickness, very firm and durable. The compression is so perfect that the briquette will not absorb water even if it be laid in it for some time. The earthy browncoal is preferred for briquette making on account of the ease with which it is pulverized.

In a raw state browncoal is also used for burning bricks, stoneware, and drain tile, for which purposes it is preferred to any other fuel. Brick clays and fire clays are often found in close proximity to the browncoal, and the manufacture of bricks, fire brick and tiles, at an extremely low price, is thus rendered practicable, and a great number of mines have brick yards in connection with them by means of which they are enabled to make use of all their coal, even what would otherwise be refuse.

At one of the larger brick works on the Rhine the experience of several years trial proved that a firing with a mixture of browncoal briquettes and raw browncoal gave better results in actual work than stone coal alone, stone coal with briquettes, or stone coal and raw browncoal, and at the time of my visit works were just being completed for briquetting their browncoal for use in this manner.

In using this earthy browncoal for such firing purposes, or under steam boilers and elsewhere, due attention is given to the arrangement

 

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of the fire-boxes and grates to suit the fuel. If a flat grate is used the grate bars are made very narrow and with small intervals between each.

The favorite grate, however, is called the "treppen rost," and is a grate arranged in a series of steps by which the air gets proper access to the browncoal without need of a blast sufficient to carry away the smaller particles unburned.

For household purposes stoves of suitable construction for cooking and heating, using raw browncoal or briquettes as fuel, are for sale everywhere in Germany. The briquettes are preferred for fuel on account of their cleanliness and freedom from smoke in burning.

The comparative extent of the use of the various fuels in the ordinary way may be seen from the statistics of the fuel supply of the city of Berlin for the year 1890, taken from the annual report of the Kohlenzeitung:

or about thirty-one per cent of the entire fuel supply.

A great many tests have been made to determine the ratio of fuel value of the German browncoal and stone coal. The results give the ratio between the Westphalian coal and earthy browncoal and briquettes about the following relation in amounts required to produce the same amount of steam:

The Bohemian browncoal contains less moisture than the common browncoal of Germany, and is therefore a better fuel in its raw state. Throughout Bohemia it is put to every use-domestic, manufacturing or metallurgical-for which stone coal is used, except the smelting of iron ores and production of pig iron. The locomotives, which have very heavy work over the mountain railways, use it exclusively. Brick works, chemical works, glass factories, firebrick and tile works, potteries, cement factories and limekilns are all run successfully and economically with this browncoal as their only fuel. It is used as fuel exclusively by the largest iron and steel works of the country for the

 

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processes of converting pig iron into wrought iron and steel and for rolling this into rails, bars, wire, sheet iron and all similar products.

The use of this fuel in this manner was made possible by a close technical study of its character and a practical application of the results to manufacturing purposes. The construction of the fireboxes and grates is such that the necessary conditions to its best utilization are fulfilled, and when high heats are wanted for smelting iron or heating ingots, as in the manufacture of wrought iron and steel and in rolling mill work generally, gas firing is resorted to.

This kind of firing, which is the one most generally in use with the browncoal for all purposes where the higher temperatures are required, has several different methods of application, varying with the purpose for which the heat is required, but all having the same general principle at the foundation.

The browncoal is first converted into gas by burning in a producer of some description, usually a rectangular firebox with treppen rost grate, fed from above. The gases produced in burning are carried off by proper conduits, the tarry matters separated, in part at least, by passing through an hydraulic main, and the remaining fixed gases pass either directly to the furnace or more often through a Siemens regenerative furnace to the place where they are burned. Here they are mixed with heated air, and the heat produced by the combustion is ample for any and all purposes for which it may be required. The Bohemian browncoal has also been successfully briquetted after the German or dry method already mentioned, and a factory has been in operation for several years at Koenigsberg, near Carlsbad.

This coal has also been coked by several methods, but up to the present time the coke has not been brought into use as fuel. In some places this was prevented by the character of the coke itself, which was unsuited for blast furnace purposes. In other cases, when the coke was suitable for such use, the cost of producing it was so great that it could not successfully compete with the cheap Silesian coke from stone coal.

In Styria there is found a still drier browncoal, which in places very closely resembles jet. It is probably the equivalent of our Laredo coal, except that it contains very much less ash. This browncoal is of excellent quality, and has also been coked by methods similar to those used with the Bohemian, but the coke is not in use at present for the same reasons given above. It has, however, been found not only practicable

 

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but economical to use thirty per cent and upward of this raw coal in connection with coke from stone coal in the blast furnace for smelting iron ore, and there are iron furnaces which have been in operation for years using this character of fuel.

This browncoal, mixed with a lignitic coal, is used in the same vicinity for rolling mills, steel and wrought iron production, etc. The browncoal of Bohemia and Styria is also used in the manufacture of gas for lighting purposes. It is distilled in retorts of the usual form, and the operation differs in nowise from that with ordinary bituminous coal, except that the heated air from the furnace is used to evaporate the surplus moisture from the raw browncoal before it is put in the retort. The gas coke made from the browncoal in Bohemia is sold for use in the zinc works.

In Styria a browncoal similar to that of Texas is briquetted with a bond of stone coal pitch. Only the smalls are used, because there is usually a demand for all the lump coal that can be mined throughout this whole region, and the briquette industry is therefore not needed. The briquettes are, notwithstanding, sold at a price fully equal to that of stone coal. The system used is the Coufinhal, and the briquettes are like those now in the Museum of the Survey, which were made during my earlier experiments.

From these facts it will be seen that the browncoals of Germany and Austria are not only adapted for use as fuel for all purposes, but that they are so used, and used successfully. Moreover, the statistics show conclusively that the browncoal industry of Germany and Austria is one of very great magnitude, and it will be shown by a comparison of statistics for twenty or thirty years past that the increase in the production of browncoal has kept fully abreast of that of stone coal.

COMPARISON OF EUROPEAN AND TEXAS LIGNITES.

As stated in the beginning of this Report, I have compared our Texas lignites with those of Germany and Austria, and find that we have representatives of the various classes mentioned. I have personally examined the various classes of browncoal as they occur in the deposits, as they come from the mine, and as they are used in their various applications, and I have compared them with our Texas lignites, both in their physical character and chemical composition, with the result as stated. I have submitted average specimens of our

 

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Texas browncoals to the highest authorities of this subject in Germany and Austria, and they, without exception, confirm my statement, and unite in pronouncing the Texas browncoals of excellent quality, fully equal to the Bohemian, and equally suitable for use for all domestic, industrial and metallurgical purposes. I have therefore the pleasure of reiterating the statement made several times already, and each time supported by stronger evidence, that Texas has in the immense deposits of browncoal a cheap fuel which can be used for every purpose for which fuel is needed.

It should, however, be plainly understood in the beginning, that the browncoals of Texas will be found to differ very widely in quality, and it will require analyses of each deposit to tell with certainty for what purpose it is best adapted. Deposits will be found containing too large a percentage of ash, and some perhaps too large a percentage of sulphur, to be of value as fuel, although other uses may be found for them. Those that are suited for briquetting without bond may not serve equally well for other purposes, and some of the varieties of browncoal will not form a briquette at all by the dry method.

It is impossible, with detached basins of browncoal, formed under somewhat diverse conditions and stretching across an area seven hundred miles in length, that all should be equally good. That there is an abundance of the material that is of a most excellent quality is shown by the examinations and analyses already made by the Survey of deposits and specimens from all portions of the lignite belt, and yet other of these analyses also prove the existence of deposits which are comparatively worthless.

Therefore, in any undertaking having browncoal as its basis of supply, either as fuel or raw material for manufacturing purposes, an accurate knowledge of the material should be obtained before operations are begun.

UTILIZATION OF TEXAS BROWNCOAL.

The fact of the great fuel value of the browncoal having been thus fully decided, I have endeavored to secure all possible information, and when practicable the detailed drawings or plans of the various kinds of ovens, fireboxes, grates and appliances for using browncoal. Some of these are the subjects of patents, and can therefore only be used under royalty or purchase; others, and some of these the most important, are not patented and are free to all.

Through the kindness of the owners of the iron works and rolling

 

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mills in Bohemia and Styria, I have secured plans in detail of the fireboxes, gas producers, and arrangements by means of which they use the raw browncoal for the purposes stated. I have also the plan of the blast furnaces which are now in operation using a mixed fuel of coke and raw browncoal.

From the manufacturers of locomotives I have detailed plans of the fireboxes used on such locomotives as are intended for browncoal. All of these plans and methods are applicable for the use of our Texas browncoal for similar purposes.

The machinery for the production of briquettes by the dry method is manufactured in Germany, the most of it under patents. General descriptions and estimates of the cost of erection are in the office.

Presses and machinery for the production of briquettes using pitch as a bond are manufactured in Germany, France and England. I have plans and estimates of the different styles and sizes of these showing approximate cost of erection and operation.

Plants for the production of tar, paraffine, oils, etc., from the browncoals are of a much more complex nature. General plans and estimates are now in the office, and details will be furnished me as soon as they can be prepared.

Some of the principal uses of our browncoal will undoubtedly be in the manufacture of brick, firebrick, drain tile, paving tile; stoneware, pottery, glassware, cemert and lime. Plans for the construction of ovens especially designed for these purposes, and in successful use in Germany with browncoal firing, are also being prepared.

All of these are at the service of those interested in the subject.

It can be stated now from experiments and analyses already made, both by private individuals and by the Survey, that we know that we have in the Texas browncoals certain varieties that are rich in tarry matter which will serve as a source of paraffine, and that some varieties can be briquetted with pitch as a bond and others by the dry method.

Special examinations and tests of our Texas browncoal by the largest browncoal manufacturing establishment in Europe, by the various methods of briquette manufacture in Germany and France, and by other specialists are now in progress, and as soon as their final reports are received the results will be published, together with the details of the various plants, estimates of the cost of erection, operation, etc.

 

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PALEONTOLOGY.

The assistance afforded us by specialists in this branch of geology during the second year of the work of the Survey was not only continued but greatly increased during the year that has just closed. In this, as in our topographic work, we are under renewed obligations to the United States Geological Survey.

In reply to a request for their assistance in this line of work, I received a letter from the Director, promising full co-operation, and in the work of the whole year the promptness of the determinations and replies to inquiries by every member of the Survey with whom we have had correspondence have been of greatest value to us.

The materials sent were fossils of various kinds, the identification of which were necessary for the correct determination of the geological age of the beds from which they were taken, but in some instances more detailed work was necessary.

The collections made by Professor Cummins, during the field season of 1890, contained a large number of new Nautiloid forms, and they were sent to Professor Alpheus Hyatt for study and description. His report, with illustrations and descriptions of the new forms, taken together with that accompanying the Second Annual Report, contains a far larger number of species than have been gotten together in any publication previously.

A number of specimens of fossil plants which were taken by Professor Cummins from the Permian rocks of North Texas were sent to Dr. I. C. White, of Morgantown, W. Va., who identified them, and presented the results of his work in a paper before the Geological Society of America, at the meeting at Columbus, in December. The results are of great interest, proving as they do the distribution of Permian plants of the same varieties from Pennsylvania and West Virginia to Texas.

The vertebrate fossils collected by Professor Cummins were sent to Professor E. D. Cope for determination. They were found to be of considerable interest, and a paper on them by Professor Cope accompanies this report.

Dr. W. P. Clarke, of Johns-Hopkins University, who is making a special investigation of the Echinodermata, has studied the forms taken from the Cretaceous of Texas, id="txu-oclc-5235917-3-a043a" rend="roman"/> several of which are new. Descriptions of a number of these were published in the Johns-Hopkins University circulars.

The collection of fossils which has been sent to Dr. Roemer embraced a number of forms from the Lower Cretaceous. He was at work on them during my visit to Breslau in October, but his death in December left the work uncompleted.

The sub-fossils found by Prof. Cummins on the western side of the Staked Plains were submitted to Dr. Sterki and his report will be found in its place among the accompanying papers.

CHEMICAL LABORATORY.

Mr. J. H. Herndon was in charge of the chemical laboratory until May 6th, when his services were discontinued and Mr. Magnenat given charge. Mr. Magnenat was without assistance until after my return to Austin in November, when I appointed Mr. Goodall H. Wooten as assistant. These gentlemen have carried on the entire work of the laboratory, a general statement of which will be found in another place in this report.

Immediately upon the organization of the Geological Survey, I issued Circular No. 1, dated October, 1888, giving a statement of the law concerning the analyses of ores and materials of supposed economic value, and the terms on which they would be made by the Survey for those who desired such analyses for personal or private use. This was never intended to be applied to analyses of such a character as were of direct interest to the Survey; but as there seems to be a misunderstanding as to its exact meaning, it may be best to explain the practice of the Survey in this matter.

The plain intention of the law organizing the Survey was the benefit of the people of Texas—to establish a place where citizens could send any material occurring on their property, and secure an intelligent estimate of its value at the least possible outlay. This does not mean a laboratory for the purpose of making money or competing for patronage with the professional analytical chemists and assayers of the State.

In the rules which I established for the guidance of the laboratory work I took all this in consideration, and divided the work on such material as was sent in by persons not connected with the Survey into two general classes.

 

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The first class comprised all materials, the examination of which could only be for the personal benefit of the party sending them in, This comprised suspected ores, minerals and certain other material.

The second class, on the other hand, comprised such materials as could not by their nature be of benefit to the sender alone, but which must, if of value at all, affect a larger or smaller number of persons.

For the first class the following general rules were adopted:

On receipt of any material whatever, such an examination shall be made of it as will determine its character and possible value. This may, under some circumstances, extend so far as assays for silver and gold, or even a complete quantitative analysis. When this is completed, the sender is notified of the general character of the material without giving details; and if it appears of value, Circular No. 1 is inclosed giving the conditions and the law under which analyses are made by the Survey, and when complied with and the fee paid, the examination is made, and detailed results are furnished the sender under the seal of the department.

All such assays or analyses, for which a fee is taken, are the exclusive property of the person for whom they are made, and are not used by the Survey without permission of the owner.

For materials of the second class, which in general refers to minerals of such widespread character as prevents any one person from reaping the exclusive benefit of our examinations, the same rule holds. A careful preliminary examination is made (which often includes a complete quantitative analysis) and a general statement is given the sender as before. If he wishes a complete analysis, the law must first be complied with, and then the payment of the fee makes the analysis private property.

In addition to this, many matters of interest come to light through correspondence, and in order to settle some points, specimens are often collected under my suggestion and direction, by some obliging and public spirited citizen, and sent me for investigation. I usually give the collector a general statement of the results, but in no such case do I furnish him the detailed analysis.

To summarize:

All specimens received have such an examination made of them as is in our judgment necessary to determine their probable value.

If the examination is paid for by the party sending the specimen in,

 

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the analysis becomes his private property, and is not used by the Survey without permission.

If the examination is not paid for, the analysis is the property of the State, and can be used as occasion requires.

All commercial analyses are referred to such professional analytical chemists and assayers as have sent us their addresses, and we endeavor to confine our work, as closely as possible, to matters bearing directly or indirectly upon the purposes of the Survey, as we have outlined them in our publications.

The following circular regarding water analyses was rendered necessary by the press of work and number of such analyses offered from different portions of the State:

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF TEXAS.
ANALYSES OF WATERS.

Circular No. 9.

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, INSURANCE, STATISTICS AND HISTORY,
AUSTIN, TEXAS, August 1, 1891.

The requests for analyses of waters of various kinds have become so frequent that it is impossible for the Survey to make them with the present chemical force. We have therefore adopted the rules of the Experiment Station of California with some modifications.

A close discrimination will be made between cases of merely individual interest and those affecting a larger circle or the public at large.

Of the latter class of cases, those involving irrigation water and the water supply of towns or cities are of such wide importance that the Survey will undertake to carry the analyses to the limit required by the objects in view.

The waters of artesian wells, forming outlets of extended artesian reservoirs, which may be still further tapped and used for irrigation or household purposes, manifestly fall within the same category.

Of the above classes of water, therefore, both qualitative" and "quantitative" analyses, sufficiently detailed for all practical purposes, will be made upon request as rapidly as they can be reached upon the regular docket.

The waters of private wells and springs, interesting only the owners, will, as a rule, be analyzed "qualitatively" only, so far as to determine their healthfulness or adaptation for domestic use; except that in all cases the total quantity of solid ingredients and the proportion of earthy and saline (permanently soluble) matters will be determined. These determinations will, as a rule, be amply sufficient to decide whether or not such waters are suitable for the uses contemplated, and, if faulty, to determine the means, if any, for improving their quality. Waters suspected of sewerage contamination will also be investigated with respect to their contents of improper ingredients of animal origin.

The analysis of supposed medicinal waters will. as a rule, be carried only so

 

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far as to determine if they are likely to prove of value, so that the sender may decide whether or not it may be worth while to go farther and incur the expense of a detailed quantitative analysis for commercial purposes. The Survey does not undertake the latter class of work under any ordinary circumstances.

MODE OF TAKING SAMPLES.—Since the value of any analysis is essentially dependent upon the correct sampling of the material, the following directions should be carefully observed when waters are sent for examination:

• 1. Not less than two wine bottles of the water should be sent in any case. An ample supply of material not only greatly facilitates the chemist's work, but also enables him to control at once, by repetition, any unexpected or questionable result he may have obtained.
• 2. Of irrigation or any other waters intended for quantitative analysis, at least two gallons should be sent in every case. Such samples should be put up in new, or very carefully cleansed, demijohns, and not in earthenware jugs, and least of all in tin or other metalic cans. In both of the latter class of vessels the water is almost sure to be so contaminated before arrival as to render the samples useless. Demijohns, and bottles as well, should be rinsed with sand or fine gravel (not with bird shot) until it is absolutely certain that nothing adheres to the inside, and until all odor of previous contents (vinegar, wine, molasses, whisky, etc.), has been removed. The corks used for closing should also be new, or, if used before, should be boiled with water until fully cleansed of all odors or adherent deposits.
• 3. The water should in all cases be taken directly from the well or spring when bottled. If gas escapes with the water, a sample of the gas should be collected in a bottle first filled with the water and then inverted in the spring basin so as to allow the gas to bubble into and fill the bottle, which should then be immediately corked under water, the cork promptly dried and then (after cutting down to the level of the bottle neck) carefully covered with sealing-wax, or bees-wax, if the former be not available.
• 4. All samples should be accompanied with a full statement of the location of the source of the water, of the depth of well, amount of water or flow of spring or stream; as far as possible of the nature of the rock or other material from which the water comes, and of all other facts bearing upon its nature and possible origin. In case of warm springs the temperature should also be given.

All such packages should be forwarded by express, charges prepaid.

E. T. DUMBLE,
State Geologist.

LIBRARY.

The need of library facilities becomes greater every day, and I have added as many books as possible during the year just closing by purchase and exchange. The acquisition by exchange of reports of State and Government Surveys, both in this country and in Europe, is aiding us materially in this direction.

 

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MUSEUM.

The arrangement and classification of the museum is now in progress. A number of new cases have been added, and while the room designed for museum purposes is not large enough to make a complete display of the collections of the Survey, typical collections can be shown which will not only be of interest to the observer and of great educational value, but at the same time impress upon all who see them the fact of our varied mineral and agricultural wealth.

During this year we have added to the great number of ores, rocks, minerals and fossils of the geological collections proper, a series of birds and birds’ eggs of North Texas, collected by Mr. G. H. Ragsdale, and a similar series of those from the coast country, collected by Mr. J. A. Singley during the intervals of work in the Galveston deep well, which he has been watching.

Mr. Singley has also made collections of the land, freshwater and Gulf shells of Texas, which are arranged in the cases in connection with a loan collection from him of foreign shells.

CO-OPERATION WITH THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS.

In continuation of the plans described in the Second Annual Report I have had a large amount of material collected for the purpose of supplying the Public High Schools of the State with collections of typical specimens of rock materials, ores and fossils representing the geology of Texas, for the purpose of assisting them in the study of geology and mineralogy. We have now on hand sufficient material to supply every High School in the State, but the press of work in other directions and the small force at my disposal have prevented the preparation of the collections as rapidly as I wished. The collections sent out embraced only rocks and minerals. The collection of fossils made for the purpose will be arranged as soon as possible.

During the year the followirg schools were supplied:

• Sulphur Springs High School. Professor B. R. Morrison, Principal.
• Gordonsville High School, Professor B. F. Holcomb, Principal.
• Mexia High School, Professor R. B. Cousins, Principal.
• Blanco High School, Professor W. H. Bruce, Principal.
• Elgin High School, Professor W. H. Stevenson, Principal.
• Eddy High School, Mrs. Bedichek, Principal.
• Van Alstyne High School, Professor H. L. Finer, Principal.
• North Texas Female College, Sherman, Mrs. L. A. Kidd, Principal.

 

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Lockhart High School, Professor J. E. Cook, Principal.
• Gonzales High School, Professor Oscar Chrisman, Principal.
• Shelbyville High School, Professor M. M. Dupre, Principal.
• Navasota High School, Professor S. H. Flake, Principal.
• Austin College, Sherman, Professor S. C. Scott, Principal.
• Sherman Institute, Mrs. M. L. Nash, Lady Principal.
• Vernon High School, Professor T. S. Cox, Principal.
• Prairie View State Normal, Prairie View, Texas, Professor Anderson, President.
• Paul Quinn College, Waco, Professor N. A. Banks, President.
• Whitesboro High School, Professor J. M. Stewart, Principal.
• Baylor Female College, Belton, Texas.
• Garden Valley High School, Professor T. J. McBride, Principal.
• Post Oak Island High School, Miss L. V. Jones, Principal.

OFFICE WORK.

The volume of office work expands greatly with each succeeding year. As the work of the Survey becomes better known to the citizens of our own State and all who are in any way interested in it, the number who seek information and assistance from us steadily increases. While this fact entails more work and longer hours, it is at the same time most gratifying, since it is the highest possible assurance of the appreciation of our work by the people whom it is intended to benefit.

The administration work must necessarily remain in my own hands. This in itself requires so much time in planning the work and directing the operations of the field parties, in overseeing the correspondence, editorial work, the laboratory, museum and library, that very little is left me for any original work.

The first portion of the past year was spent in the preparation of the Second Annual Report, the publication of which was delayed from various causes until July 1st.

The edition consisted of three thousand copies, two thousand five hundred of which were issued bound in one volume, and five hundred as separate articles.

I then spent several weeks visiting the different field parties until I received instructions to take up the lignite investigation, which trip occupied my time until November 16th. Since my return I have been in the office.

Mr. A. C. Gray was given charge of the office in June. He supervised the issuing of the Second Annual Report, and with the assistance of Mr. W. S. Hunt carried on the general office work during my absence in Europe.

 

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As an index of the amount of work involved in correspondence alone, the number of letters received during the year was more than two thousand, and a still larger number were written.

PUBLICATIONS.

The publications of the year 1891 by the Survey are as follows:

• I. Second Annual Report of the Geological Survey of Texas. 8vo. pp. cx., 738; pl. xxviii.
  Of this Report the following parts were issued as separates:
  • Report of the State Geologist.
  • Reports on the Iron Ore District of East Texas.
  • Report on the Geology of Northwest Texas.
  • Report on the Geology and Mineral Resources of the Central Mineral Region of Texas.
  • Report on the Geology and Mineral Resources of Trans-Pecos Texas.
  • Carboniferous Cephalopoda.
• II. Preliminary Report on the Utilization of Lignites.

Of the total number of each publication the law requires that a certain number be retained by the Secretary of State, and the remainder are turned over to this department for distribution. After reserving a small number for future needs and the required number for our exchange list, the balance are distributed to all citizens of the State who wish them, on payment of postage or express charges.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

Our field parties have met with ready assistance and help from the citizens of the various portions of the State in which the work has been carried on. The number of persons who have thus aided us, and to whom our thanks are due, is so great that I can only acknowledge our obligations to them collectively, and trust that sooner or later they may be more fully repaid by the results springing from our labors.

To the United States Geological Survey we are under renewed obligations for a more extended co-operation even than that of previous years. To the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey our thanks are also due for their continued assistance, as they are also to the many Paleontologists who have aided us as I have already described.

To the members of the Survey, one and all, who have given such faithful work toward the carrying out of the plans outlined for them, I return my most sincere thanks.

 

 

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF TEXAS.
REPORTS OF GEOLOGISTS
1891.

 

 

REPORT OF MR. W. H. VON STREERUWITZ.

INTRODUCTION.

AUSTIN, TEXAS, January, 1892.

Mr. E. T. Dumble, State Geologist:

DEAR SIR—In obedience to your instructions, I took the field in West Texas, May 15, 1891, to proceed with the topography of Trans-Pecos Texas, and to study the geological and particularly the economical features of this part of the State.

I organized my party with Mr. Ralph Wyschetzki and Konrad Girsewald as assistants, securing the other necessary help in the only way possible to engage it in the west—the first best men willing to take employment. To engage cook or drivers in the east would not only be too expensive on account of traveling expenses, but inexperienced eastern men, with few exceptions, are not of much use in the unsettled extreme west, where familiarity with camp life, knowledge of the country, and aptitude and willingness to undergo hardships of any kind are the principal conditions of usefulness.

Having met Mr. Goode, of the United States Geological Survey, with two topographical parties in the field to work up the country between the 31st and 32d degrees of latitude, and 105th and 106th degrees of longitude, I took advantage of this, stopped the topographical parties inside of these boundaries, and commenced to work up the mineral district of the Carrizo mountains and southern part of the Sierra Diabolo, with the Hazel mine and numerous outcrops and indications and a few prospects on silver-bearing copper ores. I mapped part of the country, and took a number of sections which will materially assist in the determination of the very extensive field of the crystalline schists and their relation to the plutonic and volcanic eruptive rocks, as well as of the superimposed sedimentary strata.

I could not effect an extension of the sections to the Guadalupe range, and thus eventually connect them with the mountains north of the 32d degree of latitude, since my wagons and animals, which had been in service under very trying circumstances since the beginning of the Sur- vey, had become worn out to such an extent that I dared only risk short trips, and could not go far from the railroad on account of the scarcity of water.

I therefore reconnoitered the Wiley mountains, and later the northern portion of the Van Horn mountains. After placing the animals (three horses and two mules) with the wrecks of the water and baggage wagon and a well-worn ambulance (the relic left by Mr. Tarr in Toyah) with the camp outfit at Phinney's ranch, disbanded the party and started on with Mr. Wyschetzki and Girsewald for Austin, on the fourth of October.

 

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I regard it my pleasant duty to express to these two gentlemen my sincere thanks for their unremitting zeal in topographical and other work, and for their ever cheerful endurance of hardships under the most trying circumstances.

Respectfully,

W. H. Von Streeruwitz.

REPORT OF MR. THEO. B. COMSTOCK.

AUSTIN, TEXAS, December 31, 1891
.

Hon. E. T. Dumble, State Geologist, Austin, Texas:

Sir—I have the honor to report that the field season of 1891, extending from May 25th to September 1st, was given by myself and party to the examination of the region south and southwest of San Angelo as far as the Rio Grande at Del Rio and Eagle Pass, and northward and northwestward from Eagle Pass to a connection with my previous work in the Central Mineral Region. The district covered this year was very large, the lack of water and of food for stock being also a serious hindrance. The problems encountered were mostly of a different type from those of the complicated region to the east of this tract, but they are of such a nature as to render careful work a necessity. However, as the topographic field parties of the United States Geological Survey were at the time engaged in mapping the area, our work was confined to a somewhat narrow belt bordering the lines run for geologic sections.

The field party of 1891, was organized as below:

• Theo. B. Comstock, in charge.
• R. A. Thompson, topographer.
• F. S. Ellsworth, aid.
• Meade Goodloe, rodman.
• J. C. Hubbard, rodman.
• J. E. Whitley, cook.
• H. L. Warren, hostler.

The only change in this personnel was the withdrawal of H. L. Warren at Del Rio, early in July. All the other members remained to the end of the season and each performed his duty with credit and satisfaction.

During my absence in June and again in August, Mr. Thompson was left in charge of the field party. In the field, as topographer and as leader of the corps, as well as in the office work of plotting, he exhibited excellent traits and is deserving of especial mention for his

 

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zeal, efficiency and the accuracy with which his observations and computations have been made.

Mr. Ellsworth proved himself invaluable in varied services as confidential assistant, and I take pleasure in bearing testimony to his energy and faithfulness in the performance of many difficult tasks. After my departure he was entrusted with important work, the performance of which has clearly proven his unusual skill as a collector and his ability to manage well in the field. In the office he did excellent work in arranging and labeling collections and in testing rocks, ores, etc., under my direction.

The other members of the party bore unflinchingly hardships of no small moment, and those who continued to the end proved in every way faithful to their trusts, contributing in large degree to the successful accomplishment of the survey in hand.

Your own constant aid and encouragement, as in other seasons, enabled us to overcome numerous obstacles and made possible much that could not have otherwise been undertaken.

Very respectfully,

Theo. B. Comstock,
Geologist for Central Texas.

REPORT OF MR. W. F. CUMMINS.

AUSTIN TEXAS, November 15, 1891
.

Prof. E. T. Dumble, State Geologist:

DEAR SIR—The work done by myself and party during the last seasons' field work was to trace the Carboniferous formation to its farthest outcrop in Central Texas, and to determine the northern extension of the Cretaceous strata along the eastern escarpment of the Staked Plains, as well as to trace and determine the extent of the Dockum and Blanco Canyon beds and their relation to the underlying strata.

A very important question for the northwestern part of the State was to determine whether or not artesian water could be obtained on the Staked Plains. It was already known that the upper strata of the Plains had a general dip from the northwest to the southeast, and it was thought that there might be an underlying strata, whose upturned edge at the base of the mountain range west of the Plains, would furnish a water-bearing stratum that could be penetrated by deep boring farther to the eastward in the country east of the Pecos river. In order to determine this matter, we traveled entirely around the Staked Plains in Texas and New Mexico, and as nearly as could be done during our hasty march, determined the geological age of the strata between the

 

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foot of the mountains on the west and the western escarpment of the Plains. The results of the investigation and determinations are given in a detailed report.

The economic possibilities of the country traveled over have been given particular attention, and as much data as possible has been collected in relation to the fertility of the soil, annual rainfall and the temperature, and especial attention has been given to the subject of irrigation along the Pecos river and elsewhere in my district

The personnel of the party during the entire field work was as follows:

• W. F. Cummins, geologist in charge.
• N. F. Drake, topographer and assistant geologist.
• Duncan H. Cummins, assistant geologist.
• R. M. Lynch, rodman.
• C. A. Bullion, cook.
• W. L. Black, hostler.

We left Austin on the 12th day of May and traveled along the old Austin and San Saba road to the latter place. From thence passing Brady to a point on the San Saba river about sixteen miles east of the town of Menardville. At this place we found the most southern outcrop of the Carboniferous formation in the central area of Texas, it being overlain to the southward and westward by the Cretaceous beds. At this place we began and ran a line of levels, and made a continuous section of the strata westward, passing Menardville and San Angelo, to Big Springs, a distance of about one hundred miles.

From Big Springs we went westward about forty miles, then northwestward to the Sulphur Springs, and from thence southward to Marienfeld, and eastward back to Big Springs.

Again leaving Big Springs, we went northward, tracing the eastern escarpment of the Staked Plains through the counties of Borden, Garza, Crosby, Dickens, Motley, Briscoe, Hall and Donley, to the town of Clarendon, on the line of the Fort Worth and Denver Railroad.

From there we turned westward, and having explored the Palo Duro canyon to the falls, we turned northward to Amarillo, and passing that town continued northward to the valley of the Canadian river, where we reached the old government road traveled by Professor Jules Marcou in 1853, he being the first geologist who ever passed through this part of the country. Turning westward along that old line of travel, we passed through Potter and Oldham counties, crossed the State line and continued along that old route as far as Tucumcari, in New Mexico, a distance of about seventy-five miles west of the west line of the State of Texas. While in the vicinity of Tucumcari we collected a great number of fossils from the beds in that vicinity, the age of which has been a matter of dispute ever since Professor Marcou said they were Jurassic,

 

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in 1853. We will no doubt be able to throw additional light on the subject, based upon the material collected by us during our visit.

Finding it impossible to see the underlying strata by traveling along the western line of the State southward, where we would have been on the high plains and sandhills all the way, we turned directly southward from Tucumcari along the old Fort Sumner road, and after traveling about seventy-five miles reached the Pecos river a few miles above the old fort.

We continued down the Pecos river a distance of about eighty miles to Roswell, and about eighty-five miles further to Eddy, and fifteen miles to the mouth of Black river.

From thence we traveled westward up Black river to its source in the Guadalupe mountains. Then we turned eastward to the head of Delaware creek, and thence to Pecos City, in Reeves county.

From there we continued down the Pecos river to the falls at Horsehead crossing, and passing through the counties of Crane, Upton, Irion and Tom Green to San Angelo, and by the most practicable route to Austin, where the party arrived on the first of November.

This brief summary of the route traveled is not intended to specify all the traveling done by the party, for in many places we made side trips of from twenty to fifty miles. To the faithfulness of the men in their various positions am I indebted for the success of the expedition, and which rendered it possible to make such a trip with so little delay, and collect the large amount of material that we have done with the facilities at our disposal.

The amount of transportation at our disposal was not sufficient to enable us to travel with that ease and expedition we would have liked. During a great deal of the time our teams had to subsist entirely upon grass, and part of the time that was very poor both in quantity and quality. The consequence is, with heavy loads and scarcity of provender, our animals arrived in Austin in a very much jaded and broken down condition.

We have this year done a great deal of work that was merely reconnoissance, and have traveled over large areas of country that had never been visited by even an exploring party of geologists, and many questions relating to the geological age of districts have been determined which heretofore were entirely unknown.

With esteem and respect,

W. F. Cummins,
Geologist for Northern Texas.

 

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REPORT OF MR. W. KENNEDY.

AUSTIN, TEXAS, January 1, 1892.

Mr. E. T. Dumble, State Geologist:

DEAR SIR —The work assigned to me for the season of 1891, as detailed in your letter of April 25th, 1891, is as follows: "The making of a detailed section across the post-Cretaceous deposits, from Terrell, in Kaufman county, via Mineola, Tyler, Lufkin, Corrigan and Colmesneil, to the Gulf."

In accordance with these instructions I left Austin on the 14th day of May for Terrell, and on arrival there began work as soon as the necessary outfit could be gathered.

On leaving Terrell the party consisted of myself, Mr. J. B. Walker, Assistant Geologist, and W. S. Teague, as driver and cook; and on our arrival at Mineola Mr. Walker returned to Austin, preparatory to making a line of sections from Cameron southward, and Teague was discharged at his own request.

While in Mineola I visited and examined the Alba Coal Mining Company's property, and afterwards proceeded to Marshall to dispose of an outfit left there at the close of last season's work.

The driver's place was filled by W. M. Bankston, and I then proceeded to Tyler. While there I was joined by Mr. Frank Fitch, as a volunteer. We then went south to Ashcraft, where Mr. Fitch left and returned home, and I proceeded alone to Rusk. At Rusk, finding it necessary, to have another man, I engaged S. A. Adams as a general assistant, and the party moved southward, without any serious difficulties, to the coast.

On approaching the completion of the section, I received your letter of August 7th, containing instructions to resume county work in Houston, Leon and Robertson counties, as soon as the line of sections was completed. Accordingly, as soon as we reached Beaumont and found it impossible to take the outfit any further south, it was turned across country to Crockett, and I went on alone to Sabine Pass.

The outfit arrived in Crockett on the 2d of October, and the work of surveying that county was commenced and carried on until about the end of November, and as the season was then too far advanced for out of door work, the party was disbanded and the outfit stored preparatory to resuming work in Leon county during the coming season.

While in Houston county the success of the work was greatly facilitated and benefited by the kindly assistance and advice of Senator Page and County Surveyor Broxon, the latter gentleman having accompanied me for a week at a time, thereby enabling me to locate places with much more accuracy than could otherwise have been done.

 

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In conclusion, allow me to thank you for your own advice and assistance during the course of the work, and the other members of my party for their attention to the work in hand and general willingness to carry out every duty assigned to them.

Yours respectfully,

Wm. Kennedy,
Assistant Geologist.

REPORT OF MR. J. A. TAFF.

AUSTIN TEXAS, December 31, 1891
.

Mr. E. T. Dumble, State Geologist:

DEAR SIR—I have the honor to submit herewith an administrative report upon the work given in my charge during the year.

It was necessary that further investigations be made upon the geology of the Trinity, Glen Rose, and Paluxy beds, which compose the Bosque division, in order to better determine their stratigraphic and toxonomic relations to each other. Accordingly I took the field April 15, 1891, and made careful sections across these rocks along the valleys of the Bosque river in Erath, Hamilton and Bosque counties, Brazos river in Parker county, South Fork of Trinity river in Parker county, and the West Fork of Trinity river in Wise county. The work was finished May 8th, 1891, and the results are incorporated in my account of the geology of the Bosque Division. In this connection, credit is due Mr. N. F. Drake and Mr. C. C. McCulloch who worked with the writer upon these rocks in the season 1889.

According to your direction, I with Mr. S. Leverett, as geological assistant, and Mr. J. W. Black as aid, began the study of artesian water conditions of southwest Texas, more especially that portion south of the Southern Pacific Railway. Investigation was taken up along the line of the Mexican National from Corpus Christi to Laredo, beginning May 27th, 1891, thence to Cotulla along the International and Great Northern Railway, and thence up the Nueces and Leona river valleys to Montell, Uvalde county. Vast deposits of post-Tertiary drift, composed of silt, gravel, boulders, and tufaceous lime so obscure the rock which govern flowing wells in a great portion of this region, that satisfactory estimates could not be made for sources of artesian water and depths for flowing wells.. Much data was obtained, but, knowing that further investigation is to be carried on in this field in the coming season, it awaits a fuller account than can now be given.

The line of parting between the Upper and Lower Cretaceous was traced from the Nueces river valley to Austin, also a study was made

 

60

of the Balcones fault, and its line located almost continuously from the Nueces to the Colorado river valleys. Much valuable data was gleaned from the bassaltic outbreaks which occur associated with the Balcones fault in the Nueces, Leona, Frio, Hondo and Medina river valleys. The information obtained throws light upon the age, character and extent of these eruptions of the Balcones fault. The knowledge obtained upon this work is in readiness to join a complete study of the dynamic and stratigraphic geology of the region.

After completing this work, I began the study of the Cretaceous system north of the Colorado river in a typical area across Lampasas, Burnet and Williamson counties. The results of this work are given in the pages of the report upon this area.

Field work ended November 27th, 1891.

The values accruing from the systematic study and survey, which is now in progress, of the artesian water area alone of this region will be more than the cost of the Geological Survey thrice toldAcknowledgments.—Mr. S. Leverett, by his valuable assistance in the field and in the office, has rendered possible an important portion of the report.

Mr. Black, by faithful adherence to his duties, rendered valuable service in the field work.

I wish to add that your encouragement and instructions given me while in the field and in the office, as well as the liberty accorded me in the prosecution of my work as an assistant, has been of very great value, and has made possible whatever of value I have accomplished.

With highest esteem, I am, yours very truly,

J. A. Taff,
Assistant Geologist.

 

CHEMICAL DEPARTMENT.

REPORT OF MR. L. E. MAGNENAT.

AUSTIN TEXAS, February 8, 1892
.

Hon. E. T. Dumble, State Geologist:

DEAR SIR—I have the honor to transmit herewith a brief report of the work done in the Chemical Laboratory of the Geological Survey during the period embraced between December 13, 1890, and January 1, 1892. During that time five hundred and fifty-five analyses have been made by Messrs. J. H. Herndon, G. H. Wooten and myself.

Below is a table showing the amount and character of the work performed, not including a large number of qualitative analyses and determinations of minerals of which no official record has been kept:

Very respectfully,

L. E. Magnenat,
Chemist in Charge.

 

 

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, INSURANCE, STATISTICS AND HISTORY,
PAPERS ACCOMPANYING THE ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF TEXAS,
FOR
1891.

 

 

 

HOUSTON COUNTY,
BY
W. KENNEDY.

 

 

HOUSTON COUNTY,
BY W. KENNEDY.

INTRODUCTORY.

In the First Annual Report of the Geological Survey of Texas the only reference made to Houston county is a short notice of Cook's mountain (a high hill about two and a half miles west of Crockett), and an outcropping of shell-bearing sand about nine miles northeast of Crockett, on the old San Antonio road. In the Second Annual Report a more extended reference to the economic geology of this county is made in a preliminary report by Mr. E. T. Dumble, State Geologist, which is taken for the most part from the notes of Dr. Penrose and the report of Dr. R. H. Loughridge on Cotton Production of the Southern States, Tenth Census, Vol. 5.

The present report is a description of the different features of the geology of the county from the standpoint of a much more detailed examination than has hitherto been made, during which it was ascertained that, in addition to the conglomerate iron ores already described, there are in the county also laminated and carbonate ores, and that the soils can be more properly presented under a different classification than that employed previously.

In order to give the details as completely as desired, it has been found necessary to repeat and enlarge some of the work previously done.

GEOGRAPHY AND TOPOGRAPHY.

Houston county lies immediately south of Anderson, of which indeed, for geological purposes, it might be considered a part. The same beds, so extensively developed in the central and southern portions of Anderson county, extend into and half way across Houston before they are overlaid by the deposits of the newer Tertiary. The eastern boundary of the county is formed by the Neches river, while the Trinity bounds it on the west. Trinity and Walker counties form the southern border. The total area of Houston county comprises eleven hundred and seventy-six square miles.

The surface is generally rolling, and slopes gently towards the south and east. In some places it is broken and hilly to a small extent. The divide between the drainage areas of the Trinity and Neches rivers forms a slightly elevated ridge running in an approximately north and south direction through the center of the county.

"

---

First Annual Report Geological Survey of Texas, 1889, p. 34.

Second Annual Report of the Geological Survey of Texas, 1890, p. 318.

 

6

The entire surface may be said to be approximately divided into two plains, through which the waters of the larger creeks have cut deep channels, sometimes fringed with broad bottom lands. The northern plain extends across the county in a roughly northeastern and southwestern direction, and has a general elevation of from four hundred and fifty to five hundred and thirty feet, and is approximately co-extensive with the area underlaid by the older Tertiary deposits. The heaviest deposits of Quaternary age also occur in this region.

Throughout the northern plain the streams have a rapid flow, narrow channels with steep banks along the greater portion of their courses, and, except in the immediate vicinity of the rivers, have a very limited extent of bottom lands on either side.

The southern plain occupies the whole of the county from Hurricane bayou southward, and may approximately be considered the area of the newer Tertiary. This plain has an average elevation of about three hundred to three hundred and twenty feet, though some few points rise considerably above this. The streams flowing through this southern plain are sluggish in their flow, and wander tortuously through broad bottom lands, and are almost without exception subject to extensive and deep overflows. Between these two plains there is no apparent break. They graduate into each other through a series of flat topped hills, some of which are covered with ferruginous gravel and sand, and others, such as Cook's mountain, by glauconitic sandstones.

The following table gives approximately the elevations of some of the highest points within the county:

The most characteristic feature of the topography of the southern portion of the county is the chain of small prairies extending across the southern division, comprising East prairie (an eastern extension of

 

 

7

Tyler); Tyler prairie, on the southeastern border; Nevill's and Mustang prairies, near the western limit. These prairies have a total area of approximately fifty square miles, and strongly resemble each other in soil and general structure. Other small prairies intervene between these, but are generally of very limited extent.

The chief streams are Cypress creek, San Pedro, Hickory and Camp creeks, and Cochino bayou, flowing eastward into the Neches river. Piney creek flows south through Trinity county, and finally empties into the Neches river. In the southern portion White Rock, with its tributaries, Box creek and Tantabogue creek, form the outlet for the drainage of an extensive area. Negro, Lost and Caney creeks, and Hurricane bayou, and the two Elkhart creeks, flow west into the Trinity river.

Throughout the central hilly region several of the higher points are locally known as mountains, the most pronounced of these being Cook's mountain and West mountain. Cook's mountain is a prominent feature of the landscape, rising about one hundred feet above Crockett, and having an elevation of about four hundred and sixty feet above sea level. This mountain rises with a gentle slope from the east and ends abruptly on the west and northwest. Its top is perfectly flat and covered with fragments of ferruginous material and fossiliferous altered greensand. The northwestern corner ends in a narrow peak about thirty feet wide, rising over one hundred and eighty feet above the level of the Hurricane bayou bottoms. From this point an extended view of several miles can be had of the lower level lands lying to the east, north and west. West mountain is the higher portion of the ridge separating the Hurricane bayou drainage from the Little Elkhart, and rises to an elevation of about four hundred feet. It is a sandy belt, covered with a conglomerate iron ore and ferruginous sandstone.

In the northeastern portion some of the high sandy hills have elevations of from five hundred and thirty to five hundred and fifty feet above sea level, Houston mound, the most prominent of them, having a still higher elevation.

GENERAL GEOLOGY.

The geological section of the county shows the Quaternary deposits to be spread over a greater part of the northern division to a greater or less depth, with a few isolated patches scattered throughout the southern portion. The general dip of the beds is in accordance with the Tertiary and later deposits of Eastern Texas—that is, from northwest to southeast approximately. Some local variations occur, but these are not generally to any great degree, and where such changes appear they are altogether due to some local cause—most of them to the erosion of underlying deposits or beds of sand. These sands are acted upon by the underground flow of water, which, finding its outlet in the numerous

 

8

flowing springs found everywhere, carry off enough of the sand to allow the upper and more compact beds to assume positions at various angles from the general uniform dip. The great divisions, therefore, lie from northwest to southeast, beginning with the oldest. The general dip of the lower or Eocene beds may be placed at about sixteen feet per mile, and that of the upper, or Miocene (Fayette) beds, at from ten to twelve feet. These dips are as approximately correct as the time and means of measurement at the command of the Survey can make them. The Basal beds of the section are altogether of the upper division of the Eocene deposits,, and occupy the county from the Anderson county line southerly to near Crockett. The southern division belongs to the Miocene.

The general section shows the following approximate thickness of the several deposits:

RECENT.

A considerable extent of Recent deposits occurs along the borders of the Neches and Trinity rivers, and also throughout the wide bottom lands forming the flood plains of the different creeks flowing through the southern portion of the county. The structure of these deposits are to a great extent laminated. Deposits of clays and sands in laminæ, having an irregular thickness varying from one-eighth to one-half inch, and dipping at various angles and in several directions, form the bulk of these beds. The dip and course of these deposits vary with the structure or outline of the area covered. Those along the various creeks and bayous are usually very much undermined, but where the structure can be made out the angles of the dip are generally very small and toward the stream channel. On the rivers, and particularly along the Trinity, where high bluffs approach the river at many places, the Recent deposits lie in great bay-like indentations. The structure of these deposits show a basin-like formation, dipping from the high outward rim or boundary toward the center, and frequently dipping down stream at an ever decreasing angle. The materials

 

9

forming these deposits are similar to those of the deposits forming along the creek flood plains. A section of a bluff of Recent material shown on the Trinity river, about a mile south of Hall's Bluff, shows:

The thickness of these deposits will not probably exceed twenty feet at their greatest extension, and the greater portion of them will not exceed fourteen feet. As is usual in the structure of such flood plains, the highest portions are close to and along the bank of the stream. In places this is so strongly marked that, while the bank is perfectly dry, shallow sheets of water or marshy land is found at some distance away from the stream. The remains found in these beds are usually stumps, branches and leaves of the vegetation now growing along the banks of the streams. Shells of the fauna living in the neighborhood are occasionally found imbedded in the sands.

QUATERNARY.

The Quatenary deposits occupy a considerable area. They form an almost continuous covering overlying nearly the whole of the northern or more elevated portion. In the southern region they do not appear to be so widely distributed, although found capping most of the higher points, as well as filling with a thin deposit of gravel and silt, some of the valleys lying among the Miocene beds, and forming many, if not the whole, of the prairies so extensively distributed throughout the lower region. These deposits have been estimated to have a thickness of between fifty and sixty feet, and naturally fall into two divisions:

PRAIRIES.

Scattered over the county there are numerous small prairies, some of which do not exceed a limit of one square mile; others—such as East prairie, on the southern boundary; Tyler prairie, adjoining East prairie; Nevill's prairie, near the centre of the southern portion—occupy areas covering from seven to thirty square miles. Mustang prairie and Towsend prairie have each an erea of about two square miles, and Murchison's prairie, on the nothern border, covers an area nearly two miles square.

"

---

Murchison's prairie belongs to the Eocene period, and is probably of Jackson age.

 

10

EAST AND TYLER PRAIRIES.—For all practical purposes these two prairies may be considered as being one. In their general elevation and chief characteristics they closely resemble each other, and a narrow belt of timber of recent growth forms the only line of division between them. They lie along the southern boundary, Tyler prairie extending for some miles into Trinity, the adjoining county. The portion north of the county line covers an area of nearly seven square miles. Their surface presents a level stretch of country, devoid of trees and covered with a dark gray sandy or silty soil. Sections obtained along a creek flowing through the main portion of Tyler Prairie show this surface soil to be underlaid by a thin stratum of siliceous gravel.

The action of the streams along the northern boundary of these prairies gives them the appearance of being slightly elevated above the neighboring country. This, however, is not the case, as at a short distance north a range of high gray sandy hills, capped with gravel, rise to an elevation of from thirty to fifty feet above the level of the prairie. The surrounding country is covered with a scattering growth of oaks and other timber, which appears to be gradually encroaching upon the prairie.

NEVILL'S PRAIRIE.—This prairie lies near the center of the extreme southern portion of the county, and occupies an area of nearly thirty square miles. It has a general elevation of about three hundred feet, and slopes slightly to the westward.

In general appearance it greatly resembles Tyler prairie. The surface soil is a dark gray silty sand, from two to four feet deep, overlying a thin stratum of siliceous pebbles and fossil wood. A characteristic feature, not noticed in Tyler, is the presence of extensive areas of light gray, almost white, unproductive crawfishy lands, which are particularly marked in the western portion.

To the north, this prairie is skirted by a range of high ground, made up of gray sands and siliceous gravel with small fragments of fossil wood, and covered with timber. This is a continuation of the high gravel and sandy ridge extending along the north side of Tyler prairie. Some of the higher grounds on the southeastern edge, on the south corner of the John Welch headright, are capped by the light gray sandstones of Miocene age.

The timber areas are gradually encroaching upon the level lands, and already clumps or groves of young pines dot the western half. Between the western edge and the Trinity river there is an extensive tract of flat gray sandy land, which probably at one time belonged to the treeless prairie, but which is now covered with a heavy growth of pine and oak with some walnut and other trees.

The levels of the Trinity, Cameron and Western Railway give Weldon an elevation of two hundred and ninety-four feet, and Hydes' bluff two hundred and twenty-one feet.

 

11

In structure these two southern prairies show practically the same section. Both are covered with a dark gray soil from two to four feet in thickness. In both regions the soils rest upon a thin stratum of siliceous and crystalline pebbles intermixed with great quantities of fossil wood. The following sections show the strata exhibited in both:

The physical condition of the soils of these prairies show them to contain over 77 per cent of silt.

The surface of these two prairies (Tyler and Nevill's) lie almost in the same plain, both having an elevation of about three hundred feet, and the high gravel ridge extending across the northern end of Nevill's prairie has its continuation stretching along the northern side of Tyler prairie.

MUSTANG PRAIRIE.—Mustang prairie forms a flat region of about one and one-half square miles in extent, and covering the greater portion of the J. H. Cummin's headright. The surface soil is dark gray, almost black, and about two feet thick. The pebbles, so marked as forming a continuous stratum in the other prairies, are not so decided in Mustang, but appear to be intimately mixed with the lower half of the soil deposit. The underlying bed is a dark yellowish gray clay, containing great quantities of gypsum in a crystalline form. This prairie lies at a higher elevation than any of the other prairies to the south, and is surrounded by hills of siliceous gravel and gray sand.

Mustang prairie shows a somewhat similar structure as Tyler and Nevill's prairies. The soil is of the same silty character and rests upon a substratum of gravel. It differs somewhat from the other two in that

 

12

its underlying beds, where exposed, appear to be a dark yellowish gray clay containing numerous crystals of gypsum. A section of this prairie gives:

This prairie is surrounded by high gray sand hills.

TOWNSEND PRAIRIE.—Townsend prairie is a small area lying on the east side of the T. R. Townsend headright. In extent it does not exceed a square mile, and lies in a basin-like form in the midst of brown sandy and gravelly hills. The surface soil of this prairie is a brown and red colored silty sand, similar to that forming the surrounding higher grounds, lying upon an under stratum of dark gray sand with laminæ or small masses of dark blue clay containing gypsum crystals.

All the prairies are, for the most part, devoid of timber. A scattering growth of oaks, with a few scattered pines, surround them and crown the higher lands on all sides. Within recent years, however, the timber has shot out long, narrow, tongue-like strips of woodland, which now reach to near the center of some portions of them. East prairie and Tyler prairie, originally one unbroken stretch of treeless sandy plain, are now separated by a narrow belt of trees. Mustang prairie has also been nearly cut in two by a similar strip of woodland, and Nevill's prairie in many places, particularly towards the west, presents a dense foliage of young pines. On all sides the timber is encroaching upon the prairies, and year after year narrowing the area, and in a few years, except where under cultivation, the treeless prairies will be but a memory of the past.

The timber is also encroaching on Murchison prairie, in the northern portion of the county, and long belts of oaks and other trees are now interspersed with open spots of what, not many years ago, was a treeless country.

The origin and absolute original extent of these prairies have not yet been completely worked out. They lie around the heads of their respective drainage systems. No streams flow completely through them, although several small ones rise from springs and other sources within their areas. It is not improbable that their origin is due primarily to their having been lakes, or marshes subject to deep and long continued inundations, within a comparatively recent period; and that, owing to a change in the level of the Trinity river, and consequent silting up of the connection between them and the waters of the river, they were gradually filled up by the washings from the surrounding higher grounds. In this stage the prairies would remain treeless. It is also probable, from their structure and the condition of their materials,

 

13

that the most southerly—Nevill's and Tyler prairies, with their connecting flat wooded areas—may have formed, within comparatively recent times, a continuous lake, or the channel of some wide stream, probably a section of the present Trinity river, since a depression of only about forty feet would again place both among the overflow or marshy lands connected with the Trinity. With the advance of the streams from' the outside towards the center of the prairies, and the cutting out of their channels, the resultant drainage of the area would ultimately render the soils suitable for the growth of arborescent foliage; and now, at the present time, as before noted, the trees of the surrounding neighborhood are beginning to encroach upon the plains.

The southern prairies have, for the present, been placed among the Quaternary deposits. If they belong to this period, they must be placed among the youngest members, and it is very probable that they ought to be classed with the older division of the Recent.

DRIFT.

With the exception of a few miles included in the area embraced by Murchison's prairie, and the small area further east occupied by the laminated iron ore, the drift deposits of the Quaternary cover the whole of the northern division of the county, and extend as far south as Crockett, and towards the western portion a few miles further south, attaining their maximum thickness of sixty feet in the neighborhood of Grapeland. Wells bored in that vicinity show a section of yellow sand over fifty feet in thickness.

Two series occur in this region —a modified or partially stratified series of deposits, and a totally unstratified heterogeneous mass of sands, gravels and pebbles. These have not as yet been differentiated, and although there can be no doubt as to there being a wide difference between the times of their deposition, no distinction has been made in this report between the two. Further observations are needed to satisfactorily separate the modified from the unstratified materials.

The general facies are gray, yellow and brown sands, gravels, siliceous and ferruginous pebbles, conglomerate iron ore and ferruginous sandstones, with occasional deposits of clay.

North of the Big Elkhart, on the old Murchison place, several stream cuttings show the sands and clays to have a stratified structure. Near Hancock's gin, and on the Hall's bluff road a few miles east of Udston postoffice, lines of stratification are also visible in many of the cuttings. In the eastern portion of the county numerous cuttings show stratified deposits of brown and yellow sand. In many places the gravel and sand are intimately mixed, and at others the sands show signs of erosion "

---

Winchell. A. J. S., Second series, Vol. XXXVIII., p. 332 (1864).
Lesquereux, Second Report of Arkansas, 1860, p. 323.
Lesquereux, A. J. S., Second series, Vol. XXXIX.. May, 1865, p. 317.

 

14

in the form of pot holes which are filled with gravel. In many localities the deposits of yellow sand end abruptly, and the overlying gravel bends down over the break, and by thickening assumes the place of the sand for long distances.

In the region between the two Elkharts, on the western side of the county, the drift deposits consist for the greater part of ferruginous sandstones broken in small pieces and intermixed with a brown sand. South of the Little Elkhart the broken sandstones give place to sand and gravel and conglomerate iron ore with great quantities of siliceous pebbles. At Hancock's mill, on Yellow creek, the conglomerate iron ore is intimately associated with blocks of ferruginous sandstone, sometimes measuring 12 x 10 x 4 or even 6 feet.

Along the north side of Hurricane bayou from Udston postoffice, on the south side of the Ramon de la Garza tract, eastward as far as Hickory creek and north to the south side of San Pedro on the Stow headright, the deposits are represented by conglomerate iron ores, gray and brown sand and siliceous pebbles, in some places exceeding twenty feet in thickness. A well dug on the J. Malon headright shows a gray sand and deposit of siliceous gravel to a depth of over twenty-two feet, and on the J. M. Manes headright, about a mile north of Hurricane bayou, a well thirty feet deep passed through pebbles and gravel and ended in a yellowish colored sand. Near the town of Augusta siliceous gravel and sand covers a small area south of the school house. Gravel and sand also occur on the north side of the Daniel McLean league and northward to near the Neches. South of the same bayou deposits of the brown, gray and yellow sand, with siliceous pebbles, occur as far south as the Alabama and Crockett road.

Beginning near Brookfield bluff, on the Trinity river, and extending eastward as far as the Trinity county line, in a nearly southeast direction, there lies a broad gravel covered ridge which rises to a considerable elevation above the surrounding gray sandy country. It is very irregular in width and at one place spreads wide enough to enclose Mustang prairie in its course.

Isolated patches of gravelly material are found at various other places. These localities all have approximately the same altitude with reference to the underlying beds, and would appear to indicate that the Quaternary drift deposits at one time covered the whole country, but have been removed by subsequent denudation.

MIOCENE.

The deposits classed by Dr. Penrose (First Annual Report, p. 47) as Fayette beds, are here assigned to the Miocene. They comprise a series of gray sands and sandstones and grey laminated clays. Toward the base there is a series of blue and brown laminated gypsum-bearing beds, the gypsum usually occurring as selenite, or in crystalline form.

 

 

15

In the western portion of the county these clays give place to massive dark brown sands and clays, containing quantities of broken plant remains. Both these brown sands and clays contain sheet-like formations of crystalline gypsum, usually filling the joints or fractures of the beds. In the southeastern regions the deposits are made up of dark blue and chocolate colored clays and lignitic deposits. The total thickness of the beds included as Miocene is placed at two hundred and fifty feet. The available lignite beds are all confined to this age.

The northern boundary of these beds begins in the northeastern portion of the county, near the north side of the Antonio Borrazo league, and passes westerly as far as the J. Pruit headright, about two miles southwest of Augusta postoffice. From that place it turns and extends south nearly eight miles, to the J. D. English headright, where the line again turns west. Passing along the south side of Hurricane bayou, it bends southward around the town of Crockett, and thence westward to within a short distance of the Trinity river, near Brookfield's bluff. From this point the line turns south, and crosses the Trinity near Alabama postoffice.

The outline of this border is exceedingly irregular. It is broken up into small narrow inlets, or stream channels, and although there appears in most places to be an almost uniform continuity between the beds of the two periods, there are in others strong evidence of a long continued erosion of the older beds before the deposition of the newer. This is visible in the neighborhood of Crockett, near Cook's mountain, and several other localities. Contacts between these overlying Miocene deposits and the underlying Eocene beds have been observed in various places along this line of demarcation, but such exposures are very few. The greater portion of the region is covered with drift materials to such an extent that the underlying beds are nearly everywhere covered to a considerable depth.

The following sections obtained at different localities occupied by these deposits show the structure of the beds classed as Miocene:

First. Section at Alabama bluff on the Trinity river.

The dip of the beds in this section is south twenty degrees east, three degrees.

Near the north end of the same bluff, and about a quarter of a mile north of this same section, the bluff shows a section of:

1. Dark silty and loamy soil ................. . 4 feet. 2. Conglomerate of stained siliceous pebbles and iron ore and silicified wood stained brown ........... ..........2 feet. 3. Fossiliferous greenish blue clay ............. 4 feet. 4. Greensand ............. .. 5 feet. 5. Clay ironstone . .. ... ................... .10 inches. 6. Fossiliferous clay, visible .... .. ......... 5 feet.

 

16

The dip of these beds is in the same direction as those in the section at the south end of the bluff, but the angle is slightly steeper. These two sections show the contact of the Miocene and Eocene deposits at this place to be but slightly unconformable. This unconformability is represented by the slight variation in the dip of the beds and the introduction of a deposit of dark laminated gypsum-bearing clay.

Going south, along the same river, to Hyde's bluff, a distance of a little over fifteen miles, the section shown in the bluff is as follows:

Dip south sixty-eight degrees east, three degrees.
Five miles east of Hyde's bluff, a well, bored eighty-three feet, shows a section of:

Near Lovelady the section of a well shows:

No. 4 of this section is reported as being found in all the wells of this neighborhood at a depth of between thirty and forty feet.

On the E. Clapp headright, near Porters' springs, a stream cutting shows a section of:

A mile and a half northwest, on the same creek, near Mr. W. G. Brazeal's house, a section of the bank shows:

 

17

Near Crockett, along the south side of Cook's mountain, a creek shows a section exhibiting the contact between the underlying fossiliferous deposits of the Eocene and the overlying gypsum-bearing clays. The following is a section from. this place:

A short distance up the creek, near the Alabama road crossing, the banks show a section of:

On the road, the beds underlying this section, comprise:

All these beds dip south sixty degrees east, three degrees.

Passing toward the east, the same gypsum-bearing clays occur near Calthorp postoffice, on the John Box headright. A section of the hill near the old Hudson postoffice site, gives:

About two miles south of this section, a cutting of Flat creek shows a section of:

Going down the creek, the lignite thins out and shows the underlying material to be a purple colored clay.

 

18

On the J. Bethed headright, about three miles southeast of the last section, the same lignite appears in a cutting, showing a section of:

EOCENE.

These deposits are covered, throughout their greater extent, by deposits of the Quaternary sands and gravels, and in some places by heavy deposits of conglomerate iron ore.

In areal extent the Eocene deposits occupy the whole of the northern portion of the county, extending from near Crockett northward to the Anderson county line, and from the Neches river on the east to the Trinity on the west. Their southern limits conform to the northern boundary of the Miocene deposits already described.

The Eocene deposits of this region may be placed as the equivalent of the Claiborne deposits of Alabama and Mississippi, although the evidence, so far as the details have at present been worked out, seem to place the upper division in a position corresponding to the Jackson of Louisiana and Mississippi, and the Smithville beds of Dr. Penrose's Colorado river section.

The following sections show the general relations of the deposits belonging to the Eocene in this part of the State. As the deposits dip in a generally southeast direction, and the beds lie apparently conformably to each other, in the northwest corner of the county the sections will show the older deposits.

Section at Wootter's bluff, Trinity river:

Small rounded lumps of lignite occur in association with the dark blue sands No. 5.

South of this about six miles, at Hall's bluff, on the same river, a section of the bluff shows:

"

---

Geological Survey of Louisiana, First Report, p. 90; Second, p. 7.
Hilgard Report of Mississippi, 1860, p. 128.

 

19

Dip south twenty degrees east, three degrees.

Still further down the river, at Brookfield's bluff, five miles below Hall's bluff, the section shown is:

No. 8 of the section extends below the line of low water level. This bed is also broken by numerous small springs issuing from it. These springs give off sulphuretted hydrogen gas in considerable quantities, and bubbles of the same gas are seen to rise in great quantities from the bed of the river.

The next section on the river occurs at Alabama bluff, about six miles in a straight line further south (nine miles by river). This section shows the last deposits of the Eocene materials.

Passing again to the northern portion of the county, near Harmon's mill on the Stephen Rodgers headright, the section there shown gives:

Four miles eastward from this section on the southeastern corner of the Jose Maria Procella headright a section gives:

South of this place, where the Rusk and Crockett public road crosses the San Pedro creek, the south bank of the creek shows a section of:

 

20

No. 4 is the same or the equivalent of the bed found at Harmon's mill, and underlying the iron ore near Robbin's ferry, shown in the next section.

Near the Robbin's ferry across the Neches, on the Leonard Williams headright, a section gives:

A section on Silver creek, and apparently lying below the last section, gives:

Toward the southern edge of the area underlaid by the Eocene deposits, sections show the general distribution to be as follows:

Section at K. Jones' well, Nevel C. Hodges' headright:

The hill at Hagues' gin, northeast of the last section, shows a section of:

The Cook's mountain shows section:

On the north side of the bayou this fifty-five feet of covered material is represented by brown sand and sandstones, underlaid by brown and black sandy clay, with occasional seams of ferruginous matter.

 

21

MURCHISON'S PRAIRIE.—The only prairie region in the northern portion of the county is that known as Murchison's prairie. This comprises an area of about two miles square, extending over a greater portion of the Jose Maria Procella league, and a portion of the northeastern corner of the Stephen Rodgers headright. Unlike the prairie regions of the southern portion of the county, Murchison's prairie does not owe its existence to lacustrine formation. This prairie, which lies somewhat lower than the surrounding country, appears to owe its prairie origin and general absence of trees to the impervious nature of the subsoils. Wherever drainage has taken place, owing to the cutting of the stream channels and the consequent carrying away of the water, trees are springing up and encroaching upon the treeless area. Like the prairies in the southern portion of the county, Murchison's prairie will, in a few years, be as well wooded as the surrounding country.

 

22

ECONOMIC GEOLOGY.

SOILS.

The soils of the county are all fit for cultivation. The virgin soil is in most places of a fairly good grade, but those under cultivation are rapidly deteriorating, and some of them have already reached a stage which renders them unprofitable for the cultivation of cotton, the staple product of the county, and are nearly in the same condition for corn production, especially the upland gray sandy and light prairie soils.

This deterioration can readily be noticed. At first small spots appear in various portions of the field, upon which the cotton plant, never very vigorous, begins to get brown and shriveled, and finally dies. These spots may not at first include more space than is covered by two or three plants, but as the season passes they grow larger, until the area included by them forms a considerable portion of the ground under cultivation. With each succeeding cotton crop this area increases. While as yet in no place observed has corn failed to grow on these spots, this crop also shows a falling off from preceding years.

Physically there appears to be no difference between these unproductive areas and the surrounding portions of the land, but chemically the constitution of the two differ in many respects. The following analyses show the chemical as well as the physical conditions of the two. Both are taken from the same field and not very far apart. Nos. 1329 and 1330 show the cotton producing soil, and Nos. 1327 and 1328 the character of one of the areas in which the cotton dies:

The physical condition of these soils is shown by mechanical analyses to be:

 

23

These soils are practically in the same physical condition. Their differences of production and non-production appear to be solely due to the variations in their chemical composition, and both are on the verge of utter exhaustion, while No. 1327 has already reached that stage as far as cotton is concerned.

The same condition exists in many of the prairie soils. A specimen obtained from Tyler prairie gives, on analysis, a result equally positive.

Analysis of soil and subsoil from Tyler prairie producing six hundred pounds of seed cotton and twenty bushels of corn per acre:

None of the other prairie soils have as yet been analyzed, but will, without doubt, disclose a similar condition of affairs in all of them except Murchison's prairie, lying in the northeastern portion of the county. This exception is altogether due to a difference in the origin and structure of the prairie.

An analysis of the black soils of the county show them to have chemical and physical conditions greatly superior to those of either the gray upland or prairie soil.

 

24

Analyses of black soils from near Brookfield's bluff:

These black soils may be classed as medium soils, although the analyses given above show this particular soil to be somewhat deficient in alumina to enable it to stand any prolonged season of dry weather. This character of soil, however, occurs mostly in the bottom, and second bottom lands, and can scarcely suffer at any time for lack of moisture. Some of the specimens collected will, when analyzed, show much more favorable results.

These soils are all transported material. Very little of any other character exists in Houston county. The small areas of the sedentary soils found in the county, arising from the disintegration of the underlying beds, all occur in the northern division. These soils result from a degradation and weathering of the extensive deposits of greensand marls found in that region, and may fairly be inferred to contain most of the ingredients necessary for vegetable life. No analyses have yet been made of this class, but a very fair idea may be obtained from the analyses of the greensand marls given further on in this report.

In estimating the quality of the soils, the classification made by Mr. P. DeGasparin and quoted by Dr. Peters, of the Geological Survey of Kentucky, based upon the percentage of phosphoric acid- and potash they contain, has been used. This classification is:

 

25

Mr. DeGasparin gives 0.04 per cent for potash as a normal average quantity.

Adopting this mode of classification, a reference to the analyses already given will show that, with the exception of the black soil of the second bottom lands, they may all be classed as poor. The black soil comes under the class of medium soils, both as regards its contained phosphoric acid and potash.

The terms soil and subsoil are, as usually applied, very indefinite terms, and have different meanings according to locality. The term "soil" is generally applied as meaning that portion of the surface im mediately under the influence of cultivation, and consequently varies with the depth to which the land is usually ploughed. All the underlying earth is classed as subsoil. The soil under this nomenclature may be anything from three to eight or nine inches, and in many places we frequently hear of a portion of the country being referred to as having no soil at all.

In collecting these soils and subsoils, a uniform rule was adopted of taking for the soil a mixture of the first foot and for the subsoil the next foot. In few places in which there was no apparent change between the first and second foot, the subsoil specimen includes a mixture of the second and third foot, and occasionally in the sandy region, contains more or less of the fourth foot beneath the surface. In every case the soil specimen is mixed with earth extending a few inches beneath that in actual cultivation. This rule was adopted from the fact that no definite or regular depth of cultivation is applied to any portion of the county, and any other method would, under such terms as soil and subsoil be meaningless.

The classification of soils adopted in this report is:

• 1. The light gray or yellowish sandy soil, belonging chiefly to the drift formations, found extensively throughout the whole of the upland regions.
• 2. The dark ashy gray and black sandy lacustrine formations of the prairies.
• 3. The dark, almost black, and brownish black transported soils of the second bottom lands.
• 4. The black and brownish black sandy clay detrital soils of the areas subject to overflow.
• 5. The brown or red sedimentary or residual soils formed in the northeastern portion.
• 6. The southeastern pine prairies.

"

---

Geological Survey of Kentucky, analyses of soils, etc., 1883, p. 12.

 

26

LIGHT GRAY OR YELLOWISH SANDY SOIL.

This class of soils is really the most extensively distributed. It covers the whole of the upland region and the greater portion of the central and southern lower lands, and is usually underlaid by a subsoil of a very similar color, and in places where dug out to a depth of four feet showed no change in the general texture. In the northern division of the county the soils are occasionally underlaid by a red, highly ferruginous, sandy clay or altered greensand, and in a belt across the center of the county the gray sands lie upon the dark blue laminated gypseous clays shown in the general section; but throughout the southern portion of the county, where any clayey material occurs, it is usually of a light gray color, very similar to the soils themselves.

These soils are for the most part poor, and the average production of cotton does not exceed six or seven hundred pounds of seed cotton per acre. They are also rapidly deteriorating under the present system of cultivation.

THE DARK ASHY GRAY AND BLACK SANDY SOIL OF THE PRAIRIES.

The soil and subsoil of the southern prairies are, with the exception of Mustang prairie, dark ashy gray in color, and remarkable for the proportion of silty material shown in their structure. The soil of Tyler prairie contains no less than eighty-eight per cent of this material, and a specimen obtained from Nevill's prairie shows the soil of that region to contain — per cent of silt. The soil of Mustang prairie is a dark ashy gray, shading into black, containing quantities of pebbles in some portions. The subsoil is mixed with numerous crystals of gypsum.

These prairie soils, particularly those of Tyler and Nevill's prairie, are, like the light gray sands, rapidly reaching the limit of deterioration. At present the average crop of cotton on Tyler prairie does not exceed seven hundred pounds of seed cotton, and the corn crop usually produces from twenty-five to thirty bushels per acre. The crops on Nevill's prairie do not exceed this average, and much of the prairie has deteriorated into crawfishy land, producing only a scanty growth of bitterweed.

The total of these areas is approximately forty square miles.

THE DARK, ALMOST BLACK, AND BROWNISH BLACK SOILS OF THE
SECOND BOTTOM LANDS.

These soils are made up chiefly of the detritus from the higher lands, and lie mostly within the areas occupying the region between the light gray sandy soils of the uplands and the dark clayey soils of the bottom lands subject to periodical or annual overflow. They are decidedly the best grade of soils in the county, and contain a much larger percentage of the essential ingredients of plant food and approach more nearly

 

27

the character of a loam than any of the others. There are extensive areas of this class, constituting much of the most valuable and productive farming lands.

BLACK AND BROWNISH BLACK SANDY CLAY DETRITAL SOILS OF
THE AREAS SUBJECT TO OVERFLOW.

This class of soils is altogether found in the wide bottom lands along the Trinity river and its tributary creeks, occupying extensive areas in the southwestern and southern portions of the county. They are generally made up of an intimate mixture of sand and clay from the washings of the higher lands, and would, under systematic and thorough drainage, form the most valuable of all soils in Houston county. At present no attempt is made to reclaim any portion of them, and they are subject to periodical overflows of from one foot to thirty-five and forty feet, according to their proximity to the river.

THE BROWN OR RED SOILS.

These are the only sedentary soils found in the county, and are mainly found in the northeastern division. Their origin is due to the weathering and disintegration of the extensive beds of greensand marls which they overlie. In the neighborhood of Murchison's prairie, and westward to near Harmon's mill on the San Pedro, this class of soils is extensively developed, and usually averages from one and one half to two feet in depth, and is underlaid by a brown sand containing numerous fragments of broken and comminuted shells. No apparent distinction lies between the soil and the underlying sand, except that the former is a little darker in color, due to the greater proportion of the contained organic matter, and the shells where found are in a very comminuted condition, but are absent throughout the greater portion of the area. No analyses of these soils have been made, but their general texture and adaptability to successful cultivation can be learned by reference to the analyses of the greensand marls from which they have been derived.

SOUTHEASTERN PINE PRAIRIE SOIL.

The southeastern portion of the county is mainly occupied by pine prairies, low flat areas of sand and sandy clay, readily working into a clayey soil, in some places devoid of timber of any sort, and occasionally of a sufficiently clayey nature to retain the surface water to such an extent as to form small stagnant pools.

These soils are, as indicated by their name, usually covered with a"

---

A loamy soil deposits from 30 to 60 per cent of sand by mechanical washing.
ohnson's Agricultural Chemistry, p. 232.

 

28

sparse growth of short leaf pine. A very small proportion is in cultivation, and very few sections showing their structure can be obtained.

CRAWFISHY SOILS.

Throughout the county there are numerous spots of "crawfishy" soils. Large areas exist within the limits of Nevill's prairie. They also occur near the site of Old Randolph, west of Lovelady, and at other places. This is due to the conditions of formation in these places. In all cases these soils are of a very porous nature, light gray or almost white in color, and have a loose pebbly subsoil which rests upon a dense clay foundation. The light sandy soil admits of a process of lixiviation by water, which carries down through the subsoil to the surface of the clay the iron, and very probably the vegetable and other valuable ingredients contained in the soil. 'Here the iron concentrates and gradually forms bog ore or black gravel, which in undrained lands are deleterious to plant life. These soils are generally devoid of vegetation. The scattering plants found growing upon them appear dwarfed and to be suffering from a lack of nourishment. At present the only plant growth, where any exists, is the common hog, or bitterweed. A corrective remedy might possibly, and doubtless will be, found in a thorough system of drainage in conjunction with a liberal supply of muck.

GREENSAND MARL.

There are extensive deposits of greensand marls in the central and northern portions of the county. They occur as an indurated shell-bearing sand of a yellow color; or a brown, marly and shelly sand; or a grass-green sandy clay, the clay usually in the form of rounded nodules of a grayish green color, thickly specked with small black grains; or as an indurated bluish greensand, containing great quantities of white shells. In addition to these, large quantities of indurated altered glauconitic sandstones, containing casts of shells, occur at different places.

The area underlaid most extensively with these sands is that north of Hurricane bayou and east of the International and Great Northern Railroad. Throughout this region the greensands are exposed in numerous stream channels and washouts, as well as found at various depths in nearly every well dug.

Exposures, in workable quantities, occur in various places along Hurricane bayou and Flat creek, a few miles east of Crockett. They are also found in Mr. K. Jones' well, in the same region, at a depth of twelve feet, where they appear to have a thickness of sixteen feet or more. At Harmon's mill, five miles northeast of Grapeland, the fossiliferous bluish greensands underlie the indurated yellow fossiliferous"

---

Hilgard's Agricultural and Geological Report of Mississippi, p. 215.

 

29

sand, and are about eight feet from the surface. From Harmon's mill east and northeastward they spread over the country as far as Mr. J. M. Langham's well, on the east side of the J. M. Procella headright. The bluish greensands are found in Mr. Langham's well at a depth of twenty feet, and in a brook two hundred yards south they appear within two feet of the surface. They are also found in great abundance along Saddler creek, on the Anderson county line. From this point southward, through Murchison's prairie, to the crossing on San Pedro creek on the Rusk road, these same greensands occur, and on the south bank of the creek, close to the crossing, the yellow indurated fossilliferous sand forms a bank twenty feet thick. They are also found on the Lewis headright, a mile and a half west of Augusta, and on the Daniel McLean headright, about three miles east of the same place. Large quantities occur in contact with laminated iron ore on the Leonard Williams headright, near Robbin's ferry on the Neches river. In several of the bluffs along the Trinity river, beds of fossiliferous clays and greensands are also found. In Hall's bluff these beds are six feet thick. They occur in Brookfield bluff, and at Alabama crossing the beds aggregate a thickness of fourteen feet. In the stream known as Collin branch, about two miles west of Crockett, a fossiliferous brown sand, ten feet thick, extends southward along the creek from near the Hall's bluff road to the Alabama road, a distance of nearly half a mile.

The following analyses show the composition of the greensands:

LOCALITIES.

• No. 1286 - K. Jones' well, N. C. Hodges' headright.
• No. 1302-Alabama bluff, Trinity river.
• No. 1449-Greensand clay, Hurricane bayou.
• No. 1445-L. Williams' headright.
• No. 1446-Murchison's prairie.
• No. 1447-D McLean's headright.
• No. 1448-Robbins' well, Leonard Williams' headright.
• No. 1494-Hurricane bayou.

The practical utility of these greensands for fertilizing purposes has been partially demonstrated by several of the farmers living in the region in which they abound. These experiments show that lands

 

30

treated even with so small a quantity as fifty bushels per acre have yielded an increase in crop sufficiently great to warrant their use.

IRON ORES.

The iron ores of Houston county belong chiefly to the conglomerate variety. Laminated ores occupy a small area in the northeastern portion, and a number of stratified deposits of clay ironstone of varying thickness, occur in connection with the greensand deposits in the central and western portions of the county.

CONGLOMERATE ORES.

The characteristics of these ores have been described by Dr. Penrose in the First Annual Report of the Survey. In very few particulars, and these trifling ones, do the ores of Houston county vary from those of the other parts of Eastern Texas. They occur in the shape of detached fields or areas, extending from near the mouth of Hurricane bayou to the northeast corner of the county, near the confluence of the San Pedro creek with the Neches river. The most westerly area lies along the height of the land forming the divide between the waters of the Elkhart creek on the north and Hurricane bayou on the south, and embraces the greater portion of the A. W. Beckham headright, a large portion of the Ramon de la Garza tract, and the whole of the J. W. Hughes, J. Henly, J. Porter, S. B. Langham and J. R. Murchison headrights. They are also found on portions of the A. E. Gossett, J. Walker, W. P. Albert, J. A. Barton and J. L. Walsh headrights. The whole field approximately covers sixteen square miles. The ore is more extensively developed along the eastern side. On the A. E. Gossett land it lies in the form of large bowlders from'four to six feet in diameter and from one to two and one-half feet thick. Going westward it becomes more fragmentary and sandy, until near the western limit, on the de la Garza headright, it might also be classified as a ferruginous sandstone.

The central deposit occurs in scattering quantities from Harmon creek, on the southeast corner of the J. M. Box headright, northward as far as the S.W. Stow headright, a distance of nearly six miles. This ore is associated with red ferruginous sandstones, and lies upon a ridge of yellowish gray sand, about two miles wide, underlaid by a red ferruginous sandy clay. The whole area is approxmiately ten square miles. It is of very poor quality, and can scarcely be considered more than a siliceous gravel cemented by a ferruginous matrix.

Southeast of this area, and on the Joseph C. Teague and R. R. Russell headright, there is another deposit mixed with yellow and brown sandstone. This deposit is of no practical value, except that it might, by crushing, form a good road-metal.

"

---

First Annual Report Geological Survey of Texas, p. 81.

Report on the Iron Ores of East Texas, p. 31.

 

31

In the section lying along the Neches river south of the San Pedro creek, and south of the Anderson county line, there lies a deposit of very coarse conglomerate associated with soft red ferruginous sandstones. From the texture it can not be considered as of any practical value for ore purposes.

LOCALITIES.

• No. 1062-Twelve miles northeast of Crockett.
• No. 1063-Near Davis' creek.
• No. 1064-Twelve miles northeast of Crockett.
• No. 1065-Eight miles northwest of Crockett.
• No. 1293-West side of Hammond creek, J. M. Box survey.
• No. 1294-Creek on W. E. Long's farm south of Old Moorfield, John Beaty headright.
• No. 1454-A. E. Gossett headright.

These ores are of no immediate practical value as iron producing materials. Silica is largely in excess, the proportion of metallic iron is below the limit of profitably working ores where charcoal forms the only fuel, and without concentration they would- not sustain the cost of transportation to any distance. They are more or less associated with a brown or dark red ferruginous sandstone, which may be used for some classes of building purposes.

LAMINATED IRON ORES.

In the northeastern portion of the county there is a deposit of ore of the thinly laminated or buff crumbly variety, covering an area of nearly eight square miles, in the form of a roughly oval shaped field. The southern boundary begins near the southeast corner of the Daniel McLean league and extends as far east as the J. B. Bodan'headright. From this place it runs northwestward along the Neches river to within"

---

For remarks on utilization of this class of iron ores, see Second Annual Re- port, p. 89.

See Report on the Iron Ores of East Texas, 1891, p. 28.

 

32

a mile and a half of Robbin's ferry, where it changes to a western course through the Leonard Williams and Jacob Prewitt headrights; thence southwesterly, past the northwest corner of the J. Sheridan headright, to McLean creek, and thence southwesterly, through the eastern half of the McLean league, to the southeast corner. The ore is very thinly and irregularly deposited, having a thickness of from only one to six inches. The greater proportion of the ore covering does not exceed four inches.

This field shows the typical bench formation observed everywhere throughout East Texas where this character of material covers the hills. An analysis shows:

CLAY IRONSTONE.

This class of ore is found intermixed and otherwise associated with the greensand marls, and has been observed occupying a position in almost every section in which the marls appear. The deposits, so far as observed, rarely exceed more than six or eight inches in thickness, and generally form lines of partings between the different greensand beds.

Associated with these ores are extensively distributed beds of fossilbearing siliceous ore, which in some localities reach a thickness of two or three feet, but are usually not more than six inches to one foot. Where a greater thickness than six inches occurs, the deposit is made up of a series of strata each from two to four inches thick.

The localities in which these ores are found in greatest abundance are in the neighborhood of Crockett, where the fossiliferous ore occurs near the Mary Allen Seminary, in a bed one foot thick; five and one half miles west of Crockett, on the Hall's bluff road, the same ore shows a thickness of one foot; but they are best developed in the Hurricane bayou region, where they attain a thickness of from eight inches to three feet. A section of the bank of Flat branch, on the Nevil C. Hodge headright, shows:

 

33

Fossiliferous iron of the same class also occurs at Alabama bluff, where it appears in three distinct strata, separated by deposits of greensand. The beds in the bluff have a thickness of from one to two feet. This class of ores also occurs at various other places throughout the northern and.central portions of the county, but are generally very poorly developed.

Clay ironstone occurs more or less connected with these fossiliferous ores. Outcrops are seen on the Rusk and Crockett road, three miles northeast of Crockett, and in both Brookfield and Hall's bluffs on the Trinity river. Small sheets of the same material also occur in the bluffs at Wootters' bluff, on the J. G. Thompson headright, and near Augusta postoffice, where it appears in a bowlder form. The locations and structural conditions of these deposits are shown in the sections under the heading of General Geology.

The analyses of these ores show them to have the following composition:

LOCALITIES.

• No. 1290-Three and a half miles northeast of Crockett.
• No. 1291- Five and a half miles west of Crockett.
• No. 1292-Millan branch, west of Crockett.
• No. 1296-Near College, Crockett.
• No. 1451-K. J ones' farm, Flat branch.
• No. 1493-Trinity river. Alabama bluff.
• No. 1457-East of Silver creek, near Augusta.

LIGNITES.

Lignite deposits occur at various points. Several of them are exposed in the river and stream channels, and others have been reported as being found at various depths in the digging of wells. The only deposits of any practical value are those found in the southeastern portion of the county, and at Hydes' and Westmoreland's bluffs, on the Trinity river, near the southwestern corner. These have a greater known development than those of any other section, but the analyses of specimens from near Calthorp in the east, and Hydes' bluff in the west, show them to have too great a proportion of ash to admit of their utilization for any other than local or domestic purposes.

 

34

LOCALITIES.

• No. 1. Hydes' bluff.
• No. 2. A. Rice's place, J. Bethed headright.
• No. 3. Wallace headright. near Calthorp.

The southwestern field is the extension of a much greater deposit lying in Trinity county to the south. The western limit of the field enters Houston county near the southeastern corner of the W. D. Reed headright on Piney creek, and passes in a generally northern direction a little to the west of Dodsonville postoffice, to the southwest corner of the W. E. Long headright. From this point the line of outcrop turns east as far as Cochino bayou. Crossing the bayou, the eastern boundary, so far as known, extends in a southeasterly direction to and across the county line, on the John Applegate headright. The total area of this field is approximately fourteen square miles. The average thickness of the lignite is from four to six feet, and its quality is shown in analyses Nos. 2 and 3 given above.

In the western part of the field, the lignite, as seen in the four foot deposit on Flat creek, is bright and glossy when first dug, but soon loses its color and become a dull lustreless black, with small, rounded, bright, glossy, bituminous-looking patches or spots scattered sparingly through the mass. It breaks readily into cuboidal blocks, and when dry has a tendency to crumble. On the eastern side of the field, at Rice's, the exposures when dug into show the lignite to have a dull brown color.

In structure this field appears to be slightly trough-shaped, the lignite deposits having an increased thickness toward the centre. A section on the Wallace headright, near the western edge, shows it to have a thickness of four feet, and to be overlaid by a thinly laminated dark colored sandy clay.

Section in Flat creek, J. Wallace headright:

About two hundred yards further west, on the same headright, the lignite forms the bottom of the creek for nearly one hundred feet, and has thinned out to about one foot. It is underlaid by a purple colored

 

35

clay, and lies much nearer the surface than where it has a greater thickness. This exposure shows a section of:

The section shown in a stream near Mr. A. Rice's house, on the J. Bethed headright, shows a nearly similar structure:

Throughout the intermediate region underlaid by the lignite the sections wherever shown are practically the same as those given. The lignite appears in the streams in every place where the cutting is deep enough to reach it, and it is also found in the `ell borings. On the W. Z. Millen headright it is six feet thick, and lies at a depth of thirty feet. Three miles northeast of the southwest corner of the J. B. Trenery headright it comes up to within eighteen feet of the surface.

The southwestern lignite field is best developed at Hydes' and Westmoreland bluffs, on the Trinity river. At Hydes' bluff the outcrop extends from near the ferry nearly half a mile in a southeasterly direction. The section of bluff shows:

The lower bed of lignite at this place is very pronounced, and forms a ledge in some places six feet wide along the face of the bluff. In texture, it is strong and solid, of a dark glossy luster when first mined, which it retains for some time, but ultimately becomes a dead black.

It breaks in large cuboidal blocks, and disintegrates slowly when exposed

 

36

to the air. Its composition is very variable, changing materially at different portions of the bed. The analysis given shows it to have 16.70 per cent of ash, but another determination of a specimen not many yards distant showed only seven per cent of ash. It is probable that the lignite from this deposit may, with the good facilities for transportation at hand, be utilized under much the same circumstances as that of the deposit at Alba, Wood county.

A deposit is also reported as existing on the J. A. Miller headright, a short distance north of Knight's creek. Small deposits are reported to exist at other places, but as they have been found in digging wells, no particulars of their structure or condition could be obtained.

BUILDING STONES.

The building stones of Houston county are wholly of sandstone, and belong principally to the Eocene and Miocene divisions of the Tertiary. Some dark red sandstones are found in the overlying Quaternary sands. The Eocene and Miocene sandstones may be divided into two classes, each having characteristics and qualities peculiar to itself, and widely separated from each other. The Eocene are chiefly of an altered glauconitic and ferruginous character, and are frequently only indurated sand, having the peculiar characteristics already described by Dr. Penrose. Those belonging to the Miocene beds are altogether of a different nature. They are mostly of a whitish gray color, and are generally found bedded, the bedding being from two to four feet. They are also sometimes fossiliferous, in so far that they show broken remains of plant life.

The Quaternary sandstones are red or dark brown in color, soft in texture, and occur only in few places. They are usually found in the shape of aggregations of bowlders, but very often solitary.

Ferruginous sandstones and altered glauconitic sands are found scattered over the greater portion of that division of the county lying north of and at several places within a short distance south of Hurricane bayou. They have been quarried for building purposes at several places, but chiefly at Cook's mountain, about two and one-half miles west of Crockett, and at Hale's quarry on the Sherman headright, about nine miles east of the town.

Cook's mountain, where the quarries are situated, shows an abrupt, almost precipitous face, looking north and northwest, and rising about 130 feet above the level of the lower second bottom lands belonging to Hurricane bayou. No permanent quarries have been opened, and the building stone obtained from this place is taken altogether from the broken debris of the heavy bed of brownish yellow altered glauconitic sandstone forming the cap or covering of the mountain. It contains specks of mica and numerous casts of Eocene fossils, and shows a thickness"

---

First Annual Report, p. 87.

 

37

varying from six to ten feet. It is easily obtained, and when freshly quarried very easy to cut and dress. It hardens on exposure to a firm and very durable stone.

The stone found in Hale's quarry is greenish yellow when first taken out, but upon exposure gradually assumes a yellowish brown color. When freshly broken it is very soft, but with its change of color be comes much harder, though still retaining its friable character. It contains numerous mica specks, but so far as observed is non-fossiliferous. This quarry is formed along the face of a ledge looking toward the north, and the rock bed has a face of five feet. This sandstone has been quarried for building purposes at irregular intervals for a great number of years, the principal uses to which it is put being foundations and chimneys.

A deposit of grayish brown sandstone, ten feet thick, also occurs at Brookfield bluff on the Trinity river; and at Hall's bluff, four miles further up the river, there is a bed of sandstone of a very similar character, four feet thick. These sandstones are very friable, and so far as seen can only be classed as indurated sands, and of no value for building purposes.

In the southern portion of the county, the gray sandstones of the Miocene formation occur on the east side of the Chas. Campbell headright, east corner of the J. Gregory headright, the west bank of White Rock creek, on the Francesca Martinez league, and near Pennington, on the Trinity county line.

The deposit on the C. Campbell headright is a small outcropping of about twenty-five acres in extent, and occurs mostly in the form of large bowlders. The stone has a gray color when freshly broken, weathering to a light cream tint. In texture it is compact, siliceous, and contains specks of mica, and occasionally broken remains of plants.

On the John Gregory headright the sandstones exposed lie in regular bedding, and are about fifteen feet thick. The strata are from ten inches to two feet in thickness, and the area occupied by the deposit is from fifty to sixty acres. In texture this sandstone resembles that on the Campbell headright, although its deposition is much more regular.

The deposits on White Rock creek are not confined to Houston county, but extend for several miles into Trinity county. The sandstones outcropping in the higher ground between the creek and its several branches, and along the banks of the main creek itself, are similar in quality and structure to those found on the Gregory headright.

Small quarries have been worked at these three points for several years, and the materials used for building purposes. These sandstones are of close enough texture to admit of dressing, and with the exception of the deposit found on the Campbell headright, can be readily obtained in blocks large enough for any practical purpose. The Campbell

 

38

deposit, on account of the bowlder like form of the stones, will only supply blocks of a limited size.

Scattered throughout the Quaternary deposits in the northwestern portion of the county, there are numerous aggregations of ferruginous sandstone bowlders, some of which attain a great size. The sandstones belonging to this class are of a brown or dark red color containing small segregations of iron ore and numerous specks of mica. In texture they are coarse grained and soft. They have been utilized by the farmers and others living within the vicinity for building foundations and chimneys.

A deposit of this class of material occurs on the Crockett road about a mile west of Grapeland, and similar deposits occur throughout the region as far west as Elkhart creek.

Brown sandstones of this class occur in great quantities near Hancock's gin, on the A. W. Beckham headright, and along the banks of Coperas creek, in the northeastern portion of the county. In both of these places they are associated with deposits of conglomerate iron ore. Similar deposits associated with conglomerates, also occur on the Stow headright, about twelve miles northeast of Crockett, on the Rusk and Crockett road, and on the J. E. Allen headright, near the Allen school house, about nine miles northeast of Crockett on the same road.

CLAYS.

No good clay, suitable for the manufacture of any of the finer grades of earthenware, have been found in Houston county. Brick clays or earths, in limited quantities, are found among the Quaternary deposits in the northern half of the county, but with the exception of the works at Crockett, no brick making establishment exists. Occasional kilns of brick have been burned at Lovelady and Grapeland, and several other places, but none within the last two or three years. The brick works at Crockett have been in existence during the last three years, and usually employ sixteen hands. The bricks are made from a somewhat gravelly yellowish brown brick loam, found in the immediate vicinity of the Mary Allen Seminary, by a Sword machine having a daily capacity of thirty thousand. These bricks are dried on the yard and require from seven to nine days to burn. When properly burned they are very hard, of a dark brownish gray color, marked with dark blue iron spots. The fuel used is a mixture of oak and pine wood, in the proportions of three-fifths of oak to two-fifths of pine. About one cord of this mixed wood is required to burn one thousand bricks. The average annual output of this yard is between five hundred thousand and six hundred thousand, the statistics of the last three years being: 1889, 1,000,000; 1890, 600,000; 1891, 500,000.

The large number burned during the season of 1889 was due to the contract obtained for the building of the Mary Allen Seminary.

 

39

Some of the clays found in association with the upper brown marl beds may possibly be found of a good quality for the manufacture of vitrified paying bricks. An analysis of a clay found in Hurricane bayou bottom lands, on the N. C. Hodges headright, shows it to have the following composition:

TIMBER.

Nearly three-fourths of the county is covered with timber. The classes represented are mostly oak, including the several varieties of that timber, pine, hickory and walnut. Gum, ash, elm and other kinds are scattering. The proportions of these timbers appear to be approximately: Oak, thirty-five per cent; pine, thirty per cent; hickory, fifteen per cent; walnut, ten per cent; gum and other trees, ten per cent. The oak is found scattering over the greater portion of the county, and is the prevailing timber throughout the northwest and western areas. The pine, although found in scattering plats near the center of the county, occurs principally in the south and southeastern portions, where it is estimated to yield from eight hundred to ten thousand feet of lumber per acre. It is altogether of the short leaf variety; no long leaf pine grows in Houston county. The hickory is generally found on the bottom and second bottom lands, and the walnut is altogether confined to the second bottom land. These trees are generally scattering. The whole county may probably average from sixteen to twenty-five cords per acre.

From the last assessment rolls there appear to be thirteen saw mills within the county. Some of these, however, have been shut down from various causes.

WATER SUPPLY.

The drainage of the county is divided into eastern, western, and southern basins. The Neches river with its tributary streams, the San Pedro, Hickory and Camp creeks, Cochino bayou, and Piney creek, form the main arteries of the eastern area. The western division is drained by Trinity river with the Big and Little Elkharts, Hurricane bayou, Caney bayou and Negro creek as tributary streams. The southern area, or that of White Rock and Tantabogue creeks, is what may be looked upon as a subsidiary basin tributary to the Trinity river. The divide or water shed between these two areas is chiefly a

 

40

series of high land covered throughout most of its course by a light gray sand. Towards the north, the divide extends in an approximately southeast direction as far south as the Luke West headright, about five miles east of Crockett, from which place it divides, the eastern division extending nearly southeast, and separating the White Rock area from that of the Neches. The western ridge between the areas of White Rock creek and the Trinity proper, extends west as far as Crockett, and then bends southerly, a direction it maintains to the county line.

The creeks found in the northern portion of the county form a strong contrast to those in the southern section. In the north, they are strong and active all the year round, and have been utilized as a producer of power for various saw and other mills at one time located along their banks. At present these streams are utilized to drive four mills and gins. The southern creeks are mostly slow and sluggish, meandering through broad bottom lands, subject to extensive overflows in the winter and spring and dry during the summer, or at best containing water only in a few small pools.

Good springs of water occur throughout the northern, and a few in the southern half of the county, but as a general rule the water supply has to be obtained from wells, and that of the southern district is usually of a very poor character, and disagreeable to the taste.

The Neches river is not navigable in any portion of its course bordering on Houston county. The Trinity has been ascended by small steamboats as far north as Green's landing, in Anderson county. Both rivers may, however, be profitably utilized for rafting purposes.

 

A SECTION
FROM
TERRELL, KAUFMAN COUNTY,
TO
SABINE PASS ON THE GULF OF MEXICO.
BY
WM. KENNEDY.

 

 

A SECTION
FROM
TERRELL, KAUFMAN COUNTY,
TO
SABINE PASS ON THE GULF OF MEXICO.
BY WM. KENNEDY.

INTRODUCTORY.

In the First Annual Report of this Survey, Dr. Penrose, Geologist for East Texas, examined the rivers crossing the Tertiary deposits, and described the beds forming the sections shown along the Brazos, Colorado and Rio Grande. The uniform sequence of the various deposits, as. exhibited in these river sections, led to the general inference that these, or deposits of a similar character, would be found extending clear across the State, from the Louisiana line on the east to the Rio Grande on the west.

While these river sections are very valuable in many respects, they do not give a consecutive view of the whole of the beds constituting the various divisions of the Tertiary and newer strata in Southern and Eastern Texas. This is. necessarily so, as the river banks have not, except at few places, sufficient height to disclose any continuous order of succession of the beds. From the series of bluffs presented here and there, sometimes comparatively close together, but in many cases at long intervals apart on the three rivers mentioned, Dr. Penrose constructed the sections described by him in his preliminary report.

With the twofold object of ascertaining the continuity of the deposits through the region east of Dr. Penrose's Brazos river section, and filling in the breaks necessarily left by him, in order to have as complete a section across the Tertiary areas of the State as could be obtained, I was instructed to run a line southeasterly across these areas from the border of the Cretaceous to the Gulf.

In making such a line of sections, several very important conditions had to be taken into consideration, the most important being the total absence of reliable maps of the region to be traversed. The old maps published by the General Land Office, while useful in many respects, are practically of little or no value for geologic work, and for locating purposes are often very misleading. No roads are shown upon these maps, and nearly every stream is either incorrectly located, or not to"

---

First Annual Report, Geological Survey of Texas, 1889, pp. 22-58.

 

44

be found at all, having an existence only upon these maps. No topographical maps of the region exist with the exception of one single sheet showing the topography of Cherokee county, made by the United States Geological Survey at the request of the State Survey. Until good, reliable topographic maps have been made, any geological work, however careful the observer may be. is liable to inaccuracies, both as to extent and thickness as well as the actual superposition of the beds themselves, and all owing to no fault of the observer. This can be readily understood from the fact that while at one place a deposit of sand may be loose and full of fossil remains, several miles away the sand of the same bed may have become impacted and appear as a soft sandstone containing very few evidences of the rich fauna seen in the loose soft sand, and yet these two may really be a continuation of each other and form the same geological horizon.

A very important consideration was the necessity of having some data as to the relative elevations of the different portions of the country through which the line extended. The levels of the'lines of the various railways running towards the coast in the most direct course conformable to the one the sections were wanted, offered the best data obtainable and consequently the line of the section was begun on the border of the Cretaceous area three and a half miles east of Terrell, in Kaufman county, and carried along the following roads:

This gives a total line of sections of 291 miles, in a course more or less in accordance with the general dip of the Tertiary and newer deposits of the State. In addition to the region in the immediate vicinity of the section, many other places were examined, and where possible have been brought into the line.

The results arrived at may be briefly shown in the following table giving the thickness of the different series of deposits. These thicknesses are liable to change in some respects, as more detailed and widely extended examinations of the region progress, but so far as our present knowledge goes may be looked upon as reasonably accurate:

 

45

While the general results of the season's work, and the sequence of deposits in this portion of the State, correspond very nearly with the results arrived at by Dr. Penrose, many beds not seen by him along the rivers have been observed and placed in their true positions. A great many gaps yet remain unfilled, however, and the work of several seasons will be required to bring the various divisions of the general section of the Tertiary areas into close harmony with each other.

The following report has been divided into two sections, showing, first, a general statement of the sequence of the deposits, and second, the details of the examinations made. In an appendix to the second division will be found a table of elevations of the main points along the line of section.

Throughout these details such permanent points as could be found were used as much as possible to locate the different sections. While station houses, switches and ends of sidings have in many places formed these points, the mile posts, being nearly permanent, have been utilized as far as possible, and by reference to their numbering any of the sections can readily and easily be located. In cases where sections were obtained in localities distant from the line of railway, their positions are referred to by the name of the stream on which they are to be found and the headright upon which they are located.

The nomenclature of the beds has been changed so that Dr. Penrose's Basal Clays and the Timber Belt beds are included in the Eocene, while the Miocene may be considered the equivalent of his Fayette beds. The other divisions are included in Dr. Penrose's post-Tertiary deposits.

 

46

GENERAL DESCRIPTION.

CRETACEOUS.

After leaving the upper margin of the ponderosa marls at mile post 186, three and a half miles east of Terrell, rocks of the Cretaceous age do not occur anywhere along the line of the section. Indeed it may be said that, with the exception of a few salines of very small areal extent, such as Brooks and Steen salines, in Smith county, and a small saline in Anderson county, no actual exposures of any deposits of the Cretaceous age are as yet known to occur anywhere in that portion of the State east of the Trinity. These salines have already been described in the First and Second Annual Reports of the Survey, and need not be repeated here.

The Cretaceous rocks found at Grand Saline, in Van Zandt county, nowhere, so far as known, approach the surface, but are covered with over 180 feet of Tertiary sands, clays and shaly clays, and are only found in borings of the several wells put down for the purpose of obtaining salt. The upper series of the Cretaceous formation found in these wells appears to be a blue limestone mixed with streaks of sand and gray limestone, having a thickness of 42 feet in the Lone Star well, and 28 feet in the Richardson well, a few feet below which the salt deposit of 300 feet occurs.

While it may be possible that other Cretaceous islands occur in the area traversed by the section, the structural position of those known tends to the hypothesis that they do not, and that, during Cretaceous times, this region formed a triangular bay, of which the widest portion was towards the south. It will be observed from the locations of the islands already known, that the Texas areas have a course slightly west of south, or approximately parallel with the Cretaceous shore line several miles further west, those already laid down on the map of Louisiana, accompanying the Third Annual Report of the Geological Survey of Louisiana, show a course decidedly from northwest to southeast. These two lines, if prolonged, would converge somewhere near the southeast corner of the Indian Territory, or approximately within the area occupied by the Rocky Comfort Chalks of the Arkansas Survey.

Want of reliable data prevents any theorizing upon the connection between these Cretaceous areas, and numerous observations will yet be required to establish their relationship and true position with regard to the intervening bay-like area in which they do not appear.

"

---

Third Annual Report, Geological Survey of Louisiana. F. V. Hopkins, State Geologist. 1872, p. 203.

 

47

EOCENE.

Of the geological series of deposits exhibited in East Texas none of the divisions have the same interest as the Eocene, covering, as it does, an area over one hundred miles in width, and extending from the State line on the east, westward to and beyond the Brazos river, with its great thickness and rich fauna of numerous and beautifully preserved marine shells exhibited in some of the upper beds.

The Eocene deposits are represented in East Texas by three different sets of beds, the uppermost of which are, from their structure- and contained fauna, of undoubted marine origin, while the immediately preceding, or the lignitic group, is probably the representative of Hilgard's Northern Lignite, or the Eo-lignitic of Heilprin, and from the numerous deposits of lignite found throughout the beds, and the occasional occurrence of plant remains, must have been either estuarian or marsh during the period of formation. The third and lowermost division, which has been described by Dr. Penrose as the Basal or Wills Point Clays, and in this report denominated the Basal beds, appear from their structure to be partly, at least, of marine origin, and in all probability represents in some of the beds a marine phase of the northern lignitic. The existence of a twenty foot bed of white limestone containing innumerable casts of Turritella, Cardita and Ostrea, and other marine fossils, mark that portion of these deposits at least as have had a marine origin. These beds may probably be correlated with the Midway or Pine Barren section of the Lignitic in Alabama.

These deposits do not, so far as known, contain any lignite, but their intimate relations with the lower division of the lignite-bearing strata, and the close proximity of several extensive deposits of lignite, would suggest that at least part of the upper clays of the Basal beds were laid down under very similar conditions to those containing the lignite, and apparently there can be no good reason for making any division between them. They have, however, been kept separate, pending further examination, and the name Basal Clays, or Basal beds, has been retained for stratigraphical purposes.

The three divisions have been described under the headings of:

1. BASAL OR WILLS POINT CLAYS.

The deposits assigned to the Basal beds of the lower Eocene directly overlies the ponderosa marls of the Upper Cretaceous. Between the two series of deposits, where examined along the contact in Kaufman"

---

First Annual Report Geological Survey of Texas, 1889, p. 19.

Bulletin No. 43, United States Geological Survey, p. 70.

 

48

county, there appears to be little or no want of conformity, and they are in places so much alike in external appearance that it is difficult to tell where the one ends and the other begins. On close examination the difference is clearly marked by the structure and color of the Tertiary, the lamination of the clays and the sandy partings being more distinct than the laminæ of the underlying marls. The fauna is also different.

Another characteristic is the presence of numerous bowlders of gray limestone containing thin veins or seams of crystalline calcite and fragments of undetermined gastropods. While occasionally occurring in the upper brown clays, the bowlders are mostly imbedded within the gray sands of the formation near the contact of the lower beds with the Cretaceous. In this place they are seen lying in the sands, forming an irregular bed. Numerous similar bowlders also occur in Muddy Cedar creek bottom about half a mile northwest of Elmo station; also east of Elmo on Walnut creek; also imbedded in clay on the Goschen road, two and one-half miles south of Wills Point; and on the south side of Allen creek, four and a half miles southwest of Wills Point, they are found imbedded in a stratified yellow clay similar to that found on a hill near Mrs. Murray's house, about a mile east of Rocky Cedar. In going east from Wills Point the calcareous bowlders imbedded in yellow clay occur at several places scattered over an extent of country nearly two miles in width.

Another feature of the yellow clays is the numerous nodules or concretions of carbonate of lime found in them throughout the whole of the area traversed by the section, as well as in many other places occupied by the thinly laminated brown clays or their accompanying overlying brown sands.

As a general conclusion, it may be stated that the calcareous calcitic bowlders and lime concretions are typical characteristics of these deposits, and from their structure and contained fossil remains appear to have had their source or origin in some bed of Cretaceous deposits not now represented in this portion of the State, and have been deposited since the deposition of the lowermost beds of dark blue laminated and jointed clays.

Interstratified with the clays, and inclosed between the upper brown clay and the lower dark blue division, there occurs a series of beds of white fossiliferous limestone and brown and dark bluish gray sands.

These beds show a section of:

These limestones and associated sands first appear upon the crest of

 

49

the hill about half a mile northwest of the village of Elmo, where the upper limestone forms the surface of the hill for about one hundred yards. Nearer the village the limestones appear in a well digging, and are overlaid by the yellowish brown sand everywhere forming the surface deposit of this region. On going eastward from Elmo the limestones again appear in a tank at Cobb's switch, and about a mile further east, on Rocky Cedar creek, they attain their maximum thickness of twenty feet.

At Prairie Grove postoffice, about two miles north of the railway crossing over Rocky Cedar, the limestones also appear in most of the streams cut in the region, and from their thickness appear to extend much further north.

Somewhere between Rocky Cedar creek and Wills Point these limestones appear to give out, as in a well bored two hundred feet deep they did not appear.

A general section of the beds within the region around Wills Point gives the following:

The dip of these beds, where traversed by the section, ranges from less than one to nearly five degrees, in a southeast direction.

The greater portion of the area occupied by these deposits consists of prairie with small patches of timber lands interspersed. The timber is mostly blackjack and postoak, with a few black ash and sycamore trees along the creeks.

The economic conditions present no peculiar features. The soils are all suitable for cultivation, although liable to suffer from prolonged dry weather. The clays in many places are suitable for the manufacture of ordinary building bricks, but will probably be found unsuited for any of the finer grades of clay manufacture.

 

50

No lignite has as yet been found in any of these deposits, although they occur in many places in the overlying strata.

2. LIGNITIC BEDS.

Immediately succeeding the Basal Clays, and in close contact with them, there lies an extensive series of sands, clays and lignites, having an aggregate thickness of over nine hundred feet.

The western outcrop of these deposits occurs about three miles east of Wills Point, and the deposits themselves extend eastward beyond the Louisiana line. Their northward extension has not yet been determined, but members of the series occur near Springdale, Douglassville and Hughes Springs, in Cass county, Daingerfield, in Morris county, and at Alba, in Wood county. In their southern extension they have been traced through Cass, Marion and Harrison, to the Sabine river. Similar beds also occur in Gregg county, south of Longview, in Upshur county, near Wilkins' mill, and in Smith county, near Tyler.

The sands are variously colored, being white, yellow, brown, red, gray, blue and black, the colors often shading into one another, and with the exception of the dark blue or black, and occasionally white beds, present no uniformity of coloration for any distance. In structure they are laminated or thinly stratified, massive, cross-bedded, and frequently interlaminated with clay. In estimating their dip or thickness no reliance can be placed upon their structure, as the beds occur in all positions and dip at all angles.

The clays occur interstratified and interlaminated with the sands, and in such positions are mostly laminated. Massive and stratified beds also occur in many portions of the area, sometimes nearly free from sand, but the greater portion occur as sandy or micaceous clays. In color they are generally dark blue, gray and black. Occasionally deposits of red and yellow clay occur, and frequently thin beds of white clay are found among the upper members of the series.

The uppermost member of the deposits belonging to this group appears to be a series of laminated or thinly stratified white and red sands and sandy clays, frequently merging into one another and forming a mottled sandy clay or clayey sand. The laminæ generally do not exceed one-fourth to half inch, but the white sandy clay frequently expands to six or more feet. This series is best developed in the neighborhood of Queen City,. Cass county, where it has a known thickness of sixty-five feet, for which reason I have called it the Queen City beds. In Marion county, near Jefferson, and in Harrison county the beds appear at various places immediately underlying a yellowish brown sandstone, or altered glauconite, containing occasional casts of fossils, chiefly of the Cardita planicosta type. They occur also near Tyler, in Smith county, and as far south as to within two miles of Troupe. Towards the north they occur at Gladewater, in Gregg

 

51

county, and from Wilkins' mill, in Upshur county, westward to within a short distance of the Big Sandy.

The lowermost beds of these deposits are not as yet exactly known, but from the records of the several deep wells bored within the area, appear to be dark blue or brown clays. The yellow and brown sands found near the contact with the Basal Clays west of Edgewood do not represent the beds in absolute contact with the underlying Basal Clays, but are probably an overlap of some of the higher deposits belonging to this group. This condition is extremely probable, as towards the southwestern portion of Van Zandt county, and only a distance of two miles or so from the place where the Basal Clays are last seen, lignitic deposits occur in association with blue clay.

Between the Queen City beds and the lowermost deposits of that group there lies a series of black, blue and gray micaceous sands, blue, brown and gray clays, with thin strata of sandstones and limestones, and also containing many small seams and several heavy deposits of lignites, which unfortunately are not visible, or only partially so, at any of the places yet visited.

Towards their southern side the beds belonging to this division present the initial flexing so largely developed throughout the immediately overlying marine or glauconitic beds. These undulations occur at many places south of the Sabine river, in Smith county, beginning a few miles south of Lindale, and extending as far south as Bullard, where the beds pass under the glauconitic sands of the Mount Selman series. From whatever cause this flexing may have arisen, it is evident that the same action involved the structure of these as well as the succeeding beds, although they are widely separated in composition and the conditions under which they were deposited. A striking resemblance between the flexures of the two sets of beds, leading to the conclusion that this bending took place after the upper deposits had been laid down, is their general coincidence with each other and their uniform tendency to a northeast and southwest course, or a course approximately parallel to the old Cretaceous shore-line.

The structure and position of these underlying beds can best be seen in the well sections obtained from different portions of this field, which will be found in the succeeding pages.

• 1. Lone Star Salt Works well, Grand Saline.
• 2. Richardson Salt Works well at Grand Saline.
• 3. Well at Mineola, Wood county.

These deposits so far have yielded no fossils beyond a few broken plant remains found in the stratified bluish sandy clay north of Grand Saline, and whatever may be the ultimate correlation of these deposits, they occupy a position lower than the altered glauconitic fossiliferous sandstones so extensively developed to the south of this region, and

 

52

also found as outliers throughout the central portion of Harrison county and higher than the deposits denominated as the Basal Clays by Dr. Penrose.

3. MARINE BEDS.

The succeeding beds in the ascending scale are a group of marine deposits consisting of a series of sands, greensands and clays, having a total thickness of approximately six hundred and fifty feet.

Their areal extent embraces a ridge of land, approximately forty miles in width and having an elevation of from three hundred and fifty to seven hundred feet above tide, extending across the counties of Harrison, Gregg, Rusk, Smith, Cherokee and Houston. They occupy the greater portions of Cherokee and Anderson counties, the whole of the northern half of Houston county, and a great extent of Sabine, Nacogdoches and San Augustine, as well as portions of Smith and Henderson counties. Across the Trinity they extend westward, and in Harrison county, to the northward, they narrow to a point and become more or less broken into isolated hills. Small outliers of the same age are also found at Hughes' Springs and Atlanta and in the northern part of Cass county.

The outlines of these beds have not yet been traced to any extent. They are known to overlie the red and white sands and sandy clays of the Queen City beds in Harrison county, three miles north of Marshall, where they come in direct contact. To the west of Marshall they are again seen overlying the Queen City beds. On the south side of the Sabine river, the brown ferruginous sandstones belonging to the basal division rise thirty feet above the level of the river. Westward, in Smith county, near Bullard, six miles north of Mt. Selman, the base of the series is found in wells at a depth of twenty-four feet, resting upon a black lignitic clay. In Henderson county they occur only in the southeastern portion as iron capped hills. Toward the south, in Houston county, they dip under a series of thinly laminated blue clay and sand containing crystals of selenite; and near Alto, in Cherokee county, the upper beds are overlaid unconformably by a series of black clays and sands containing crystals of gypsum.

The Marine beds may be divided into two groups—the Basal, from its greatest development in Cherokee county, may be called tentatively the "Mount Selman" series, while the uppermost, from its typical development in Houston county, may be denominated the "Cook's Mountain" series.

THE MOUNT SELMAN SERIES.

The beds of the Mount Selman series rise abruptly from the northward to a height of seven hundred feet above sea level, and consist of a series of brown sands, blue clays, greensands, altered greensands, glauconitic sandstone and laminated iron ore, and are more or less fossiliferous throughout.

 

53

General section from Jacksonville to Bullard, across the Mount Selman beds:

The minor folds noticed in the beds between Mineola and Tyler are greatly increased in force in the Mount Selman series, and even this mountain, which may be looked upon as being among the highest, if not the highest point in this portion of the country, shows its structure to be that of an elevated synclinal trough. Minor undulations also occur throughout the whole series of the deposits to the southward as far as New Birmingham, and probably further to the southeast than is at present known. So marked are these undulations in connection with the water supply of the region, in many portions of the country underlaid by the beds of this and the succeeding series of greensands, that a knowledge of their structure is of immediate and real service to the inhabitants of the several counties embraced by these beds. It is no uncommon thing, in traveling through this region, to hear the remark

 

54

made and the wonder expressed that shallow wells situated upon the tops of the hills contain a never failing supply of water, while those in the valleys and along the hill sides require to be of great depth to insure even a limited quantity. As a general thing the tops of the anticlinals have disappeared through erosion, and many of them are now occupied by the streams of the country.

The causes of this folding are not sufficiently well known, nor have they as yet been examined throughout the whole of the area subject to them with that degree of care which will be required to work out their complete structure. With the partial knowledge now possessed no accurate opinion can be given as to the actual causes that may have induced such an extensive series of folds as have evidently been the means of the elevation of these hills. Whether these folds have been due to an unevenly eroded Cretaceous sea bottom at the time of their deposition, or from other and more remote causes, is not at present known.

The prevalent idea that the changes of dip found in the overlying beds are due to the erosion of the lower sand deposits, through, the action of springs and other underground waters, will have to be abandoned. It is undoubtedly true that many of the changes found locally in the neighborhood of the streams are due to this kind of erosion, but some other cause must be found for such an extensive series of undulations as occur in this region, involving as it does two so widely separated sets of deposits as these and the underlying lignite beds. Our present knowledge of the life history of these deposits is extremely meagre. The only fossils so far found consist of a few broken undetermined shells of the cardita type, a few casts of a small bivalve, and several small shark teeth.

COOK'S MOUNTAIN SERIES.

The chief characteristics of the upper group of the Marine beds are in many respects lithologically the same as those of the Mount Selman series. They comprise an extensive series ofgreensands, greensand marls, altered greensand containingthin strata of carbonate of iron, indurated altered fossiliferous greensand, green fossiliferous clays, glauconitic sandstones and clays, stratified black and gray sandy clays, brown fossiliferous sands, and black or yellow clays with limy concretions, with occasional local deposits of black sand with gypsum crystals. The prevailing deposits, however, are the greensands in their several characters. A striking distinction between this series and the underlying Mount Selman is the extensive fauna found in the Cook's Mountain beds.

The general section here given represents the beds of this group from Independence postoffice, in Cherokee county, to Alto, a distance of twenty-five miles. The details of the Houston county series have already been given in the report on the geology of that county.

 

55

1. Gray sand ............ 2. Interstratified laminated ferruginous material, iron ore and altered greensand .................. 3. Laminated or thinly stratified red and whitish blue sand and sandy clay ...... .................. 4. Mottled red and blue sandy clay, probably belonging to and forming the lower part of No. 3 ............ 5. Red sand and ferruginous gravel .. ..... ... . 6. Brownish stratified sand, mottled in places ..... 7. Grayish blue stratified sand in creek ............

>1. Clay ................ 2. Micaceous sandstone containing iron ...... 3. Sandstone ......................... 4. Micaceous sand ....................... 5. Altered glauconitic containing casts of fossils ........ 6. Quicksand .. ........... ........... 7. Altered glauconite with casts of fossils and thin seam of sand- stone near centre .....................

1. Gray sand ............ 2. Ferruginous sandstone ................... 3. Iron pyrites and lignite .. . . ............. 4. Laminated iron ore and brown sand (altered greensand) . . . 5. Fossiliferous altered brown glauconitic sand, containing Ano- mia ephippioides, Osirea sellœformis, Cardita planicosta and other fossils, and streaks and nodules of calcite ...... 6. Yellowish brown and grayish brown indurated glauconitic sand containing Scutella caput-linensis, Gryphoelig;a thyrsoelig;, Ostrea sellzformis and other fossils ....... 7. Greensand containing casts of fossils ............. 8. Brown sandstone, altered glauconite with casts of fossils . 9. Greensand with gasteropods and fish teeth ......... 5 feet. 80 feet. 2 feet. 6 feet. 6 feet. 20 feet. 40 feet. 20 feet. 25 feet. 5 feet. 60 feet. 3 feet. 10 feet. 3 feet. 8 in. 1 foot. 6 feet. 1 foot. 21 feet. 5 to 20 feet. 1 foot. 1 1/2 feet. 10 to 15 feet. 6 feet. 20 feet. 6 feet. 30 feet. 8 feet.

These beds present in some slight degree the same undulating structure as is seen in the Mount Selman series. This, however, is only seen near the base of the series, and where they come in direct contact with the beds of that division. As they ascend the scale the flexing ceases altogether, or is so slight as not to be appreciable. Toward the southern"

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This bed forms a well defined horizon from the Louisiana line Westward to beyond the Trinity river.

 

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border these deposits assume a general uniform southeast dip of nearly sixteen feet to the mile. The southern border, so far as has been traced, breaks off somewhat abruptly, and is strongly indebted by several great bay-like openings, and probably more than one long, narrow, river-like channel, through and among which the succeeding deposits have been formed in an unconformable manner.

The southern boundary can be easily traced from its entrance into the State in Sabine county, through San Augustine, Nacogdoches, Cherokee and Houston, as far west as the Trinity river, and probably much further, by a heavy bed of grayish brown, changing to a yellowish brown indurated sand, characterized wherever found by the presence of the fossils, Scutella caput-linensis, Gryphoelig; thyrsoelig; and Ostrea divaricata. Other fossils occur in this bed, but so far as yet known these appear to belong almost exclusively to it. It is usually about twenty feet thick, and the Scutella caput-linensis have not as yet been found in any of the others. The bed immediately overlying this is a brown altered glauconitic sand, with calcitic streaks and nodules containing Anomia ephippioides in great quantities, Ostrea selloelig;formis, Carditaplanicosta and other fossils. This bed occurs at the two places, Alto and Cook's mountain, and at many intermediate points between. It does not, however, exceed a general average thickness of ten feet, being six at Alto and ten in Houston county.

The extensive fauna of this series appears to indicate that it was in part at least a litoral or old sea margin, over which comparatively quiet and not very deep water prevailed. The following is a partial list of the fossils collected at Alto and other places in Cherokee and through Houston county, and identified by Professor Angelo Heilprin. They are all well preserved and in many places are found in abundance.

List of specimens collected in the neighborhood of Alto and McBee's school, Cherokee county:

• Gryphœa thyrsœ, Gabb.
• Ostrea alabamensis, Lea.
• Ostrea divaricata, Lea.
• Ostrea sellœformis, Conrad.
• Crassatella antestriata, Gabb.
• Scutella caput-linensis, Heilprin.
• Cardita planicosta, Conrad.
• Anomia ephippioides, Gabb.
• Cerithium whitfieldi, Heilprin.
• Crassatella texana, Heilprin.
• Rostellaria lamarckii, Lea.
• Arca mississippiensis, Conrad.
• Plicatula filamentosa, Conrad.
• Pecten deshayesii, Lea.
• Fish teeth, several varieties.

Specimens collected six miles southwest of Alto, on the Tillman Waters headright:

Scutella caput-linensis, Heilprin.

 

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• Specimens collected in Houston county—
• 1. At Alabama bluff:
  • Anomia ephippioides, Gabb.
  • Natica,—.
  • Clavella penrosei, Heilprin.
  • Plicatula filamentosa, Conrad.
  • Vermetus(?), undescribed, in great quantities.
  • Cardita planicosta, Conrad.
• 2. In Hurricane bayou and near Cook's mountain:
  • Dentalium,—(?)
  • Cardita planicosta, Conrad.
  • Gryphœa thyrsœ Gabb.
  • Ahomia ephippioides, Gabb.
  • Conus sauridens, Conrad.
  • Cardita tetrica, Conrad.
  • Natica,—(?)
  • Cerithium whitfieldi, Heilprin.
  • Messalia venusta, Conrad.
  • Cordiera texana. Conrad.
  • Pleurotoma denticula, Basterot.
  • Fusus,—(?)
  • Volutalithes dumosa, Conrad.
  • Plicatula flamentosa, Conrad.
  • Pyrula, sp. ind.
  • Pinna, sp. ind.
  • Clavella penrosei,, Heilprin.
  • Pecten deshayesii, Lea.
  • Turbinolia,, sp. ind.
  • Ostrea alabamensis, Lea.
  • Ostrea divaricata,, Lea.
  • Ostrea sellœformis, Conrad.
  • Shark teeth, several varieties.
  • Vermetus(?), undescribed, same as at Alabama bluff.
• 3. Murchison's prairie:
  • Ostrea alabumensis, Lea.
  • Cardita tetrica, Conrad.
  • Cardita planicosta, Conrad.
  • Rangia,,—(?)
  • Cerithium whitfieldi, Heilprin.
  • Crassatella antestriata, Gabb.

MIOCENE.

At the close of the period occupied by the deposition of the last of the Marine beds of the Eocene a break of considerable extent occurred,"

---

The Vermetus (?) found in these beds differs from Vermicularia bognoriensis of the London Clay as figured in Prestwich's Geology, Vol. II, figure 177b, and from the Vermetus rotula figured by Morton in "Organic Remains of the Ferruginous Sand Formation," American Journal of Science, Vol. XVIII, 1830, plate 3, figure 18. While each of these fossils have four distinct whorls, this has only three. It is smaller, more flattened and has an acute border. The free extremity of the tube tapers to a circular aperture one m.m. in diameter. The two inner whorls are slightly depressed and appear as if they increased in thickness from the centre to the inside edge of the outer whorl. Striations or lines of growth appear on the outer whorl. These striae are on the free extremity parallel with the aperture, but from the junction with the second whorl bend slightly backward. Two longitudinal ridges extend from the inner whorl forward to the point where the free extremity leaves the last point contact with the second. The greatest diameter is 10 m.m. and thickness from 2 to 3 m.m. The free extremity projects 5 m.m. beyond the last whorl.
Probably this fossil has already been described in some of the numerous publications referring to the Eocene fauna, but no reference to it can be found in any of the books at present in the library of the Survey or in my own collection.—K

 

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and extensive erosion appears to have taken place prior to the deposition of the succeeding deposits. Strong proof of this erosion can be seen almost anywhere along the line of contact where the succeeding denudation has carried off the overlying mantle of sand and gravel of the Lafayette formation. This want of conformity is everywhere visible, and the clays and sands of the Grand Gulf deposits are found frequently extending in long narrow strips for several miles into the region occupied by the Eocene marine formations, and at other places abutting bold headlands made up of the deposits of that age.

This group of deposits has been assigned to the Grand Gulf division, and are tentatively considered as of Miocene age, chiefly upon lithological grounds.

These deposits have been divided for convenience of description into three separate divisions:

• 1. The Lufkin or Angelina county deposits, made up chiefly of dark blue gypseous clays, and gray sands containing quantities of saline matter. These beds also contain lignite, in many places in beds or deposits of considerable extent.
• 2. The Fayette sands, made up of soft sandstones, light colored clays, sandy clays, and sands with occasional remains of vegetable life. These deposits approach in texture and mode of occurrence the typical Grand Gulf formations, as described by Hilgard as occurring in Mississippi, and by Hopkins in Louisiana. The plant remains, such as palms, etc., are also in close correspondence.
• 3. The Fleming beds consist of heavy deposits of clays of various colors, some of them containing concretions of lime, and gray sands. The plant remains of these sands are chiefly palm wood, and often occur in large pieces and considerable quantities.

LUFKIN OR ANGELINA COUNTY DEPOSITS.

Following the undoubted Eocene of the Cook's Mountain beds, there comes a series of deposits made up chiefly of sands, sandy clays, clays and lignites. The country occupied by them is, as a whole, low and flat, in few places of sufficient relief to present anything but the most superficial section.

In area this group extends from the Angelina river westward and southwestward across the Neches to the Trinity in Houston county. Eastward they probably cross the Angelina, and extend into and even across the southern portion of Nacogdoches, and may also be found west of the Trinity in Leon and Madison counties; but whether they cross the Angelina or Trinity is not as yet known positively. The"

---

Agriculture and Geology of Mississippi, 1860. p. 147. Hilgard, American Journal of Science. Vol. XLIII. May. 1892, p. 397.

First Annual Report Louisiana State Geological Survey. 1869. p. 98. Second Annual Report Louisiana State Geological Survey, 1870. p. 18.

 

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northern boundary, in the region crossed by the section, begins in Cherokee county, south of Atoi creek, and passes in a generally south-west direction along the margin of the Eocene beds, about two miles south of McBee's school house, two miles south of Alto, and crosses the Neches river a little over three miles to the south of Robbin's ferry. Continuing its southwesterly course as far as Crockett, it bends more to the west for twelve miles, when it again turns south and across the Trinity river at Alabama bluff, where it forms the upper division of the section.

With the exception of only one or two places, the southern line has never been laid down. They are limited to the southward by a series of gray clays and gray sandstones, which occur about a mile south of the Neches, at Clark's crossing on the Houston, East and West Texas Railway, where they rest upon the heavy deposit of gypseous clay belonging to the beds under consideration. The sandstones also occur eastward at Rockland, on the Neches, ten miles north of Colmesneil, and to the westward they have again been crossed at Riverside, on the Trinity; but whether they rest upon the same gypseous clay has not yet been determined, as at neither of these places has the base of the sandstones been seen.

The Lufkin deposits consist of gray, white and blue sands, sometimes laminated and cross-bedded, although the greater portion of them show no structure whatever. They are frequently saline, and in dry weather, the water having evaporated, the pools show heavy incrustations of salt. In many places they contain quantities of silicified wood, forming a strong contrast with the beautifully opalized wood of the succeeding deposits. Quantities of siliceous pebbles occur, at some places in small patches and at others in the form of thin, distinctly formed lines. These pebbles are mostly rounded and water worn, but are occasionally fragmental or angular pieces of an older rounded bowlder. Although they are mostly of quartz or silicified wood, occasional pieces of syenitic rocks have been found scattered through the mass, and many have a thinly stratified or laminated dark blue or black slaty appearance.

The principal bed underlying these sands, and the one probably forming the greater portion of the whole group. is a heavy bed of dark blue changing to a dirty yellow clay, containing clusters of small crystals of gypsum in great profusion. It stretches from the Angelina southward to the Neches, on the south side of which it is seen passing under the gray sandstones of the succeeding group. Where it disappears this bed is thirty-five feet thick.

The basal deposit of this group is a dark blue laminated clay, in the neighborhood of Alto, while in Houston county it consists of a dark blue laminated sandy clay, with partings of brown sand, and containing numerous crystals of selenite. In both cases the clays rest, so far

 

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as can be seen in the sections obtained, directly but unconformably upon beds containing Eocene fossils. Whether these beds are the equivalents of each other can not, with the knowledge at present available, be accurately determined. Their connection may possibly be found in Trinity and the northern part of Polk county, but in the absence of any examinations in these counties nothing definite can be stated.

Another series of deposits which may belong to this group is a set of beds found in the valley to the south of New Birmingham and Rusk, in Cherokee county. These consist of several beds of thinly laminated gray and black sands and gray clay, a section at J. D. Baker's brickyard giving:

These beds do not belong to the Eocene deposits found throughout the higher ground of the country, and may not belong to the group of beds under consideration. They are probably of estuarine or perhaps fresh water origin, but beyond their existence nothing is yet positively known, and they have only been placed in this group tentatively on account of their overlying the Eocene beds in their neighborhood.

Another circumstance which adds to the difficulty of ascertaining the exact geological structure or position of these deposits is the great want of conformity between them and the underlying Eocene beds. Everywhere, where examined, this unconformability is so strong that one is led to the almost unavoidable conclusion that the Eocene had been subjected to a long continued and great erosion before the overlying clays and sands were deposited.

FAYETTE SANDS.

A region of country, extending from the south side of the Neches southward to and beyond Corrigan, and eastward along the Neches as far as Rockland, is occupied by a series of gray sands, sandstones and gray and white clays. Toward the west the sandstones forming the northern boundary of the beds are found near Pennington, in Trinity county, on White Rock creek on the southern line of Houston county, and outlying portions, appear near Weldon, in the same county. The southern line extends from the Neches, several miles south of Rockland, westward to and beyond the Trinity, outcrops being found near Summit, in Tyler, Stryker, in Polk, and at Phelps, in Walker county.

Throughout the area the surface of the country is covered chiefly

 

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by a coarse gray sand. The greater proportion of the deposits, where seen, consists of gray sandstones interstratified with gray clays and gray sands, the last containing considerable quantities of opalized wood. A gray sandstone, containing fossil leaves as yet undetermined, occurs about one mile north of Corrigan, and the upper beds of the southern standstones, near Bowers, contain numerous casts of palm leaves, reeds, etc. Some of the palm leaves are of great size, fragments measuring from three to four feet across being of frequent occurrence.

Three miles north of Corrigan, on the line of the Houston, East and West Texas Railway, a deposit of white limestone occurs, containing casts of shells. The fossils found here have been referred to the Eocene by Dr. Dall, on the strength of the existence of the cast of what appears to be a Cardita planicosta.

The thickness of these sandstones and clays, as shown by the sections, are approximately one hundred and fifty feet. Near Rockland, they have a thickness of two hundred feet; on the Neches, at Clark's Ferry crossing, thirty feet; the exposures on McManus creek, and other places near Stryker, are over one hundred feet; in Hitchcock's quarry, near Corrigan, twenty feet; and westward, at Riverside, on the Trinity, they appear to have a thickness of over one hundred feet in the river bluffs.

The internal structure of the area, and the actual development of the beds, are not known beyond the few details gathered along the immediate line of the section, which are given in the succeeding pages.

These beds have been referred to the Grand Gulf (Miocene) of Hilgard by Dr. Loughridge, and denominated the Fayette beds by Dr. Penrose, and reported as passing clear across the State. In the Second Report of Progress these sandstones have tentatively been placed in the Miocene. The general section across these beds is as follows:

General section from Angelina river, in Angelina county, south, to Corrigan, in Polk county:

"

---

Cotton Production of the Southern States, U. S. Census, Vol. 5, p. 21.

First Annual Report Geological Survey of Texas, p. 47.

 

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FLEMING BEDS.

Succeeding the gray sandstones, sands, and gray or white clays of the Fayette beds, there comes a series of clays and sands or sandy clays.

These deposits are best seen in the neighborhood of Fleming, where, a little west of the station, the Trinity and Sabine Railway line passes over a high hill made up entirely of these deposits. The same clays also occur in a cut on the line of the Southern Pacific Railway about a mile and a half north of Summit station, in Tyler county. How far south these clays and sands extend is not yet known, but in this region the prevailing blue limy clay occurs near Woodville, ten miles south of Colmesneil. This would give that bed a width of at least twelve miles. The clays are dark blue, pale blue, brown, red, yellow, and pale green in color. They occur thinly laminated, or partially stratified, and massive, and have a strong tendency to joint or break into cuboidal blocks with a conchoidal fracture. The most important bed of clay in this group is a blue clay, partially stratified, but showing a tendency to break up into blocks, and containing numerous concretions of carbonate of lime. This clay is perfectly smooth in texture and graduates into the underlying bed of red clay without any break except that of color, and the absence of the limy concretions, which apparently do not occur in the red clay. At least where the beds were examined none were found. The red clay is in every other respect similar to the blue.

Pale green, pale blue and brown clays are found overlying the blue limy clays at the different exposures, but occur most abundantly to the north of Summit station. These colors are not so persistent as the blue, and are probably due to some local cause.

These clays are probably the same as those found by Dr. Penrose and described by him as belonging to the Fayette beds of his Colorado, Brazos and Rio Grande river sections.

 

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These clays in this portion of the State are overlaid by and associated with a series of gray sands, which are mostly coarse grained, sometimes massive, and in localities cross-bedded and stratified. The typical exposure seen at Fleming shows them to be gray stratified sand containing fossil palm in great quantities, with numerous quartz, jasper and other pebbles, and to have at that locality a thickness of twenty feet.

The southern limit of these sands and clays is not yet accurately known, but they appear to be succeeded by the dark blue clays of the Recent, and their estimated thickness is close to two hundred and sixty feet.

General section from Corrigan, in Polk county, eastward, to Colmesneil, in Tyler county:

General section from Rockland, on the Neches river, in Tyler county, south, to Sabine Pass.

 

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PLEISTOCENE.

The general facies of the Quaternary deposits are orange, brown, red, yellow and gray sands and loams, with occasional deposits of red and yellow clays and silts toward the north, and blue massive and laminated clay in the southeastern part of the State; ferruginous and siliceous gravel; soft, much broken deposits of ferruginous sandstone; broken monolithic bowlders of brown, white and gray sandstone; gravelly and ferruginous conglomerate, and highly siliceous iron ore. The maximum thickness of these deposits has been placed at ninety feet, but this thickness exists at only a few places. As a general rule, the deposits here classed as of Quaternary age are thinly and irregularly deposited, and rarely exceed ten feet in thickness.

Structurally, these Quaternary sands and gravels show a very irregular deposition, subjected to a variety of vicissitudes In places they present a stratified or quasi-stratified appearance, with regular lines of deposition for short distances, but which soon become broken and irregular. The great mass of the deposits, however, do not present any uniform mode of deposition, but appear as a heterogeneous mass, through which the ferruginous and siliceous pebbles and fine gravels are distributed promiscuously. At places the gravels are deposited in the form of thin strata, extending for many yards and ending abruptly in a deep rounded pothole which they completely fill. Where the iron ore deposits occur the coarser gravels and pebbles show large quantities of ferruginous material, but away from these points the siliceous pebbles and gravels form the prevailing characteristics of the deposit.

In areal distribution it extends from the State line westward to and beyond the Trinity, and from the northern boundary of the Tertiary area to the coast. Ferruginous sands and gravels and siliceous pebbles are found everywhere, capping the highest hills as well as extensive areas of the low lands. In thickness they are very irregular, in some places reaching a maximum of sixty feet, at others not exceeding ten feet, while over wide areas they are extremely thin or do not occur at all. They occur but rarely in the region in which the Basal Clays are found, and their southern limit appears to be near the southern margin of the Fayette beds. Throughout the southern portion of the region occupied by them they appear as outliers or fragmental remains of an

 

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extensive deposit once reaching still further south. The most southerly point at which they have as yet been seen is near Hillester, in Tyler county, within sixty miles of the coast marshes. The section at this place presents a series of yellow, mottled, pink and white, brown and pink sands, with great quantities of ferruginous pebbles scattered throughout 'the lower division. Ten miles farther south the siliceous pebbles have disappeared, and the last of the ferruginous gravels are seen about a mile north of Hyatt. The yellowish brown sandy loam continues as far south as Village creek, where it disappears under a heavy deposit of pale blue laminated clay. Toward the west, along the east side of the Trinity river, the gravels and sands appear plentifully in Trinity, Houston and Anderson counties. In this region they present the feature of being laid down in long narrow belts extending from the northwest to the southeast.

The gravels belonging to this formation are made up chiefly of ferruginous sandstones and flint, quartz and other siliceous rock. While the greater proportion of them are of white quartz, sometimes perfectly translucent, but oftener stained brown or yellow, many pebbles of dark blue laminated paleozoic rocks occur, and here and there amongst them are found mottled gray and black pebbles and rocks belonging to the quartzitic group. Most of the siliceous pebbles are rounded and water worn. Some few of them are subangular in form, and appear to be fragments of much larger bowlders which had been removed before being broken. Pebbles of silicified wood also occur in great quantities, many of them rounded and perfectly smooth, others flat, smooth sided, from six inches to over a foot in length, and from half an inch to two inches thick. These have their angles scarcely rounded, and present a general appearance of having traveled only a short distance.

The conglomerates belonging to these deposits are altogether made up of ferruginous sands and gravels and siliceous pebbles cemented together by a solution of iron. They have no definite lines of occurrence, but are found usually, if not altogether, in the neighborhood of the streams. The main deposits are always associated with water, and are either close to the high water line or within a few feet of it, and probably had their initial formation with the beginning of the present system of drainage. The older conglomerates are always higher up the side of the hill, and are much harder than the new, so much so, that while the siliceous pebbles in the newer deposits are easily detached from their matrix, they can only be extracted from the older with great difficulty, and break much more readily than they can be detached.

Conglomerates of both these characters occur throughout almost every county east of the Trinity, and as far south as Colmesneil, in Tyler county. In Cass, Marion, Harrison, Gregg, Cherokee and

 

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Houston counties they are extensively developed, and in fact are found more or less throughout the whole of the iron region of East Texas.

Along the Trinity river, in Houston county, the conglomerate is made up chiefly of brown sands, siliceous gravels, broken nodules of iron ore and fragments of a ferruginated fossil wood, and underlies a series of dark gray silty loam, and in structure is much less compact than the conglomerates further north and east.

Another grade of conglomerate occurs in small, scattered, isolated patches crowning the gray sandstone near Bowers and Stryker, in Polk county. This is made up of an association of small grains of translucent or milk white quartz firmly cemented together by a siliceous matrix.

In addition to the pebbles and fragments of silicified wood found in association with the gravels of this formation, great quantities of the same character of wood are found scattered through the sand in almost every portion of the country. Some of these pieces are of great size, ranging in length from four to ten feet, and frequently from six to eighteen inches in diameter. These woods present a variety of structure and color. In most cases they are gray or brownish gray, and many of the brown blocks have black streaks running through them. Pieces showing these colors have their general woody structure still visible, and from their general occurrence throughout the gray sands, upon which grows a dense growth of postoak and blackjack, and,the general resemblance of the silicified pieces to these woods, have given rise to the opinion prevailing among thepeople that these fossil woods are of the same class of timber.

Fossil wood also occurs in the lignite beds and sand. In these, however, the structure of the wood is mostly destroyed, and the color, even when perfectly silicified, is always a black or a very dark blue.

With the exception of the silicified wood in the gray and brown sand, no fossils of any kind have yet been found.

The origin of the gravels has not been determined, but it is more than probable that the greater portion of them are of comparatively local derivation, having originated in some of the paleozoic rocks, occupying the country towards the north and east. Any of more distant origin have evidently came into the region by a process of reassortment due to the action of the water.

In the southern portion of the State, through Hardin county, the Quaternary appearsto be represented by a series of dark blue, massive, laminated clays, of which, however, very little is yet known. They are first seen on the south side of Village creek, in Hardin county, and extend southward as far Grigsby's bluff, when they are lost under the coast marshes. They also occur along the coast around the entrance of Sabine lake, forming the sea bottom.

The clays are usually dark blue in color, but in places are massive

 

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and a light blue with slightly yellow shade. In most places they appear as laminated, or thinly stratified. Towards their northern end, however, and in the neighborhood of Concord, on Pine Island bayou, they appear as massive. Owing to the prairie-like region embraced by these deposits, and the few breaks found anywhere within their area, no good sections are obtainable. The streams where any do exist are usually bordered by marshy land, and even there no opportunity is afforded to see much, if anything, of their structure. They have been classed as of Quaternary age, and probably may be correlated to the Port Hudson of Hilgard. Their thickness will probably not exceed one hundred feet.

RECENT DEPOSITS.

Deposits of Recent material are extensively distributed throughout the whole of East Texas. Most of the rivers and their larger tributary streams are subject to extreme variations between high and low water marks. As a result, there are extensive areas of overflow lands everywhere along the water-courses. Occasional bluffs occur of sufficient elevation to stand above the high-water mark, but in many places the overflows reach depths varying from a few feet to twenty-five or thirty feet, and in some extreme instances the water has risen to forty-five feet.

In addition to the Recent deposits of the flood plains of the rivers and creeks, the low lying coastal plain bordering the inlets of Sabine lake and Galveston bay and other portions of the Gulf coast is altogether of Recent origin.

A third series of Recent deposits are to be found in the numerous lacustrine formations occurring at many places. These deposits are, however, generally of small extent areally, and so far as our present knowledge goes, badly defined. In places they are represented by small marshy deposits, and at others by small prairie-like spots, deriving the material for their formation from the surrounding area belonging to the older deposits.

Areally, the only deposits of Recent origin of which any real or accurate knowledge is at present available are the flood plains of the rivers and creeks or bayous and the great coastal plain, and to these only has any direct attention been paid.

FLOOD PLAINS OF RIVERS.

Nearly every river and large stream, as well as many of the minor tributaries, are bordered along each bank by extensive flood plains, or lands subject to periodical overflows. A characteristic common to most of the rivers, where broad flood plains exist, is the tendency of the main streams to change their courses, sometimes rapidly and in other cases very slowly.

 

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Where cut-offs occur, the old course of the river can readily be traced by a line of deep pools connected by shallow marshy places. Instances of this class occur on the south side of Sulphur Fork, in the northern portion of Cass county, and along the Sabine river through the southern portion of Harrison county, as well as at other places throughout the region drained by these streams. The Sabine appears to have had many changes of this character within a comparatively recent period. Where the Texas and Pacific Railway crosses, on the west side of Wood county, a well defined channel appears running parallel to the present course of the river, with which it is connected at its northern end by a series of small pools or lakes lying within the limit of the flood plain; and near the crossing of the Mineola division of the International and Great Northern Railroad, another chain of small marshy pools, lying nearly a mile and a half north of the present channel, again marks the old course of the stream.

Of the slower changes of the stream courses the only evidences noticeable are the general destruction and disintegration of the lower deposits, while the upper beds, still subject to overflow, present the laminated appearance found everywhere. Extended areas of this class of deposits occur along the Sulphur, Sabine, Neches, Angelina and Trinity rivers.

At the crossing of the Sabine by the Texas and Pacific Railway, near Silver lake, the flood plain of the river is nearly half a mile wide, and where the Mineola branch of the International and Great Northern Railroad crosses, the flood plain lying north of the river is over two miles in width. In Gregg county the width of the overflow lands is contracted to small areas lying alternately on each side of the river. In Harrison county the flood plain again widens out and covers an area of nearly a mile in width across the greater portion of the county. Where the Houston, East and West Texas Railroad crosses the Neches, the flood plain is nearly a mile and a half wide, and north of this, on the same railroad, at the crossing of the Angelina, there is another extensive erea. Along the Neches river, on the western portion of Henderson county, there is an extensive area covered by Recent deposits, and throughout Houston county the Trinity river, in wet seasons, overflows its banks in many places to a width of several miles. Along the smaller bayous and creeks tributary to these larger streams the same conditions exist.

COASTAL PRAIRIES OR PLAINS.

The Gulf coast along East Texas is occupied by an extensive prairie or plain, in many places cut by bayous and occupied by extensive marshes, and in no place except the region of High Islands, about fifteen miles east of the eastern extremity of East bay, elevated more

 

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than a few feet above the level of the waters of the Gulf and Sabine lake.

"From the head of East bay to High Islands the land is low wet prairie, covered with ponds, and in many places impassable for wagons. The High Islands are the only high lands on the Gulf coast between Galveston and Sabine, and probably the highest on the coast of Texas. Their elevation is eighty to one hundred and fifty feet above high water, and their area about two thousand acres. The central point of the islands is about a mile and quarter from the Gulf shore.

"From the High Islands to the Sabine all is prairie, in some places impassable marsh to a breadth of seven miles in the wet season, small bayous running through in various directions and entering the lake or ponds. Firm land at all seasons can not be found short of from six to nine miles from the coast, and in many places not short of fifteen or twenty miles.

"In very violent southerly winds nearly all the prairie for some distance back to the shore is covered by water from the Gulf."

Beginning near Beaumont, in Jefferson county, a belt of Recent material nearly a mile wide, mostly marsh and subject to overflow; extends southward along the west bank of Snow river as far as Grigsby's bluff, where it broadens out along both sides of the river. From Grigsby's bluff this belt of low land widens westward, its approximate line of contact with the underlying blue clay being a line running westward and southward crossing Hillebrand's bayou near the junction of Point bayou on the C. Hillebrand headright.

The country lying between this boundary line and the Gulf coast presents most of the features described by Bell as given above. , It is low and flat, much cut up by bayous and ponds, with numerous marshes, and in many places absolutely impassable for wagons. It is altogether devoid of trees, and is covered throughout its greatest extent by a heavy growth of coarse marsh grasses.

Taylor's bayou, with its tributaries, Mayhew bayou, North fork of Taylor, and Bayou Din, and Double Point, Hillebrand and Beddie's bayous form the principal water courses along the northern and central portion, and Texas bayou in the extreme southeastern section.

From the nature of the country no sections could be obtained in any portion. - Its structure appears, from a surface examination; to be chiefly a sandy ridge along the Gulf coast, slightly elevated above the back country, which, as already stated, is to a great extent made up of or covered by marsh. The depth of this marsh is probably not very great, and may only be a surface formation resting upon the dark blue clay outcropping near Spindle Top, about four miles south of Beaumont. These blue clays, according to the observations of the United States Coast Survey, appear in Sabine pass and along the Gulf coast"

---

Lieutenant GeorgeBell, United States Coast Survey, 1861, p. 264.

 

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at a depth of only six or seven feet, and are also found about two and a half miles north of the entrance to the Pass at a depth of twelve feet.

From Beaumont to Sabine Pass the distance is about thirty miles, and these clays disappear about six miles south of Beaumont, or at an elevation of about twenty feet above tide level. This would give the clay, assuming the upper bed at both places to be the same, a dip of about one foot per mile, and give the marsh an average thickness of twelve feet.

Grigsby's bluff forms a prominent feature along the Neches river, about four miles north of the entrance of the stream in the Sabine Lake. The bluff itself is made up chiefly of Recent material. It is about one hundred and fifty yards long and from ten to fifteen feet high. The main feature is the presence of shells of the Gnathadon cuneatus in vast quantities, mingled with vegetable molds, and having a few scattering shells of an oyster associated with the Gnathadon forms. Similar shells and moulds occur at several other places along the Neches as far up as Beaumont.

LACUSTRINE FORMATIONS.

Scattered through this portion of the State numerous small prairie-like spots occur. They usually lie in depressions, and have the appearance of having been marshy lands which have been filled up by the washings of the surrounding higher ground within comparatively recent times. The gravel and other deposit belonging to the drift formation are usually absent in these locations, or if present at all are covered by a heavy deposit of dark gray sand or silty loam, and are always secondary in importance to the overlying material.

These prairies are for the greater part treeless, but within recent years long narrow strips of woodland have begun to stretch their finger like shapes far into and in places quite across the prairie, and the surrounding timber is also gradually narrowing the limits of the treeless space.

These deposits have not yet been studied, and with the exception of those found in Houston county, and described in the report on that region, nothing accurate is known about them.

"

---

United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1883, p. 176, sketch 12 in same volume.

 

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DETAILS OF SECTION.

The line of section has been separated into six divisions corresponding to the different railways along which it extends.

1. FROM TERRELL TO MINEOLA, ALONG THE TEXAS AND PACIFIC
RAILWAY.

This line of sections runs in a nearly east and west course, while the dip of the various beds passed across are within a few degrees of south-east.

From Terrell eastward, to within a few miles of the village of Elmo, the country is comparatively level and covered with the yellow clayey marls of the Ponderosa beds of the Upper Cretaceous.

At mile post 186, or three and one-half miles east of Terrell, the marls are overlaid by a series of thinly laminated dark blue or almost black sandy clays and sands, containing in many places small broken Tertiary fossils. These are altogether bivalves, and are in such a condition that it is difficult to recognize them. No fossils occur close to the line of contact, but are found in a, cut one mile further east, where they are associated with a thin line of small calcareous nodules.

The clays are overlaid by a deposit of brownish gray sands containing numerous calcareous bowlders mixed through the sands, and which are occasionally fossiliferous, containing fragments of gasteropods.

A cut on the railway at the line of contact shows the following section:

Going eastward from this place to Elmo the gray sands and clays of the above section are seen near Muddy Cedar creek. Half a mile north of the road the same class of calcareous bowlders are found forming the bed of the creek, and the same dark clays form the base of the material seen on Walnut creek half a mile east of Elmo station, at which place they are overlaid by a grayish brown sand enclosing bowlders of limestone of the same character as those found in the sands west of Elmo.

About a half mile northwest of Elmo station there is a hill a section of which gives:

 

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A short distance east, the limestone is covered by a yellow sand. This is the first occurrence of the white Turritella limestone in the area, and its position, as will be seen from the above section, is not as has hitherto been supposed at the base of the Tertiary deposits in this portion of the State, but at least fifty feet above the base.

Four miles east of this section a tank at Cobb's switch shows a section of:

One mile east of Cobb's switch the white limestone occurs in the bottom of Rocky Cedar creek, and at the crossing of the public road to Wills Point, about a mile south of the line, the limestone is twenty feet in thickness.

In speaking of this locality, Mr. R. T. Hill says (Vol. 2, Geological Survey of Arkansas, 1888, page 56): "A similar non-conformity between the Basal Tertiary and the Upper Cretaceous is also well shown four miles east of Elmo in Texas." Mr. Hill is probably mistaken in his locality, as at Rocky Cedar, four miles east of Elmo, the Tertiary deposits are at least fifty feet thick. The bed exposed in the creek, for nearly two miles north of the railway and about a mile south of the same place, is the white Turritella limestone, and is over twenty feet in thickness, of which the upper surface only is seen near the railway and public road crossing.

From this it will be seen that these limestone deposits have a tendency to thicken towards the southeast. Whether they reach their maximum thickness a little east of Rocky Cedar is not known, but apparently they thin out after passing this point, as the limestone was not seen in a well bored two hundred feet deep in Wills Point, five miles further east.

From Rocky Cedar, going east, the line of section extends across a series of yellow laminated clays and clayey sands, having a uniform southeasterly dip of from two to five degrees. These clays close to Wills Point contain occasional calcareous bowlders and nodules, which become more plentiful toward the south and southwest. They occur half a mile south of Wills Point, on the Goshen road, and also four miles southwest on the Allen headright on the south side of Allen creek, where they lie imbedded in a yellow stratified clay, which clay forms a subsoil and underlies the prairie as far east as mile post 171, or three miles east of Wills Point.

From the contact of the laminated blue clays with the Ponderosa marls, three miles west of Elmo, to the point of the disappearance of the yellow clay, three miles east of Wills Point, the width area embraced by the Basal Clays of the Tertiary deposits in this portion of the State is fifteen miles, and the complete section of these clays and sands show them to have a total thickness of two hundred and sixty-two feet.

 

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The country which they occupy is characterized by extensive prairies interspersed with small patches of timber, mostly post oak and black jack with a few black ash and sycamores along the creeks.

Near mile post 171 the character of the beds change from clay to gray and brown sand, and four hundred feet west of the mile post the overlying deposits are sandy clays and sand containing great quantities of ferruginous sandstone nodules, and sixteen hundred feet east of the mile post a section gives:

These beds dip southeast at an angle of two to three degrees. This change in the deposits is marked by the first occurrence of timber in any extensive body.

Going eastward, towards Edgewood, the overlying sands thicken rapidly. Near mile post 168 a section of the cut shows:

Near the east end of the cut the sand has been eroded, and a deposit of coarse sand or gravel occurs in the shape of a pothole fifty feet long and from one to eight feet in thickness. This cut lies on the west side of a creek having a bottom or flood plain three thousand feet wide.

The sand on the east side of the creek shows a thickness of fourteen feet, and at Edgewood station a cut shows sixteen feet. Wells dug in the vicinity of Edgewood, however, give this sand a much greater thickness. A well close to the station gives the following section:

Another well near this place struck lignite at thirty feet, and a well dug about a mile east of the station gave the following:

Going eastward, from Edgewood, the yellow sands continue to form the surface deposits. A few fragments of silicified wood and nodules of iron ore occur near Stevenson switch, and eastward of this place there is a small deposit of rounded and water worn gray sandstone enclosed in a deposit of gray sandy clay. The gray clay is replaced, six hundred feet toward the east, by brown sand more than twenty feet in thickness. Near mile post 165 the railway passes through a cut showing a section of:

 

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The dip of the underlying clay in this section is south of east a few degrees, and between the brown sand, No. 2, and the gray sand, No. 3 of the section, there occur a few bowlders of ferruginous sandstone and a small quantity of iron ore.

At the eastern end of this cut the deposits underlying this blue clay are shown in the following section:

About a mile further east the cut gives the following section:

The general dip of these beds is southeast two degrees.

Crossing Crooked creek, a hill to the east of the creek shows a section of:

Fifteen hundred feet east of this cut the brown sand, No. 2, is over- laid by thinly stratified white sand dipping south twenty degrees east at an angle of four degrees.

A compiled section of this part of the line gives:

On the old Dallas and Shreveport road, at Devil's Gap, about half a mile south of the line, a cut in the road shows a section of:

 

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The peculiarly protective action of the hard cap rock overlying a deposit of soft material is beautifully illustrated in the case of the eight inch stratum of sandstone a few hundred yards east of the last section near the west side of Mill creek. In a cut on the road the sandstone is broken in places, but where it remains the thin slabs of stone are seen resting upon pedestals of underlying sands and clays. These stand out very prominently from the face of the cut, and are frequently completely isolated from the bank. These pillars are of a uniform height of five feet, and their former connection with the bank behind them can be traced by the thin band of sandstone passing towards the east around the hill.

Crossing Mill creek, and going east, the country is covered with the gray sand streaked and cross-bedded and lying in strata of unequal thickness for nearly a mile. Near Bolton's switch a cut in the hill shows the section of:

The lower beds of this section dip three degrees to the southeast.

Going eastward the sands and clays seen in the following section maintain a southeasterly dip of two to three degrees for nearly a mile, after which they change slowly to a northwestern direction:

On the east side of Caney creek, a cut or washout nearly six hundred feet long, and from fifteen to twenty feet deep, shows a series of gray and brown cross-bedded sands which are apparently underlaid by the blue clay found west of the creek. The cut shows the following section:

The thickness of the brown, overlying sand in this region