REPORT
ON
GRIMES, BRAZOS, AND ROBERTSON COUNTIES.
BY W. KENNEDY.

CHAPTER I.
GRIMES COUNTY.

GEOGRAPHY AND TOPOGRAPHY.

Grimes forms one of a group of counties lying to the north of and immediately succeeding the great coastal prairie region, forming an intermediate plain between that and the still higher iron ore-capped region of Leon, Houston, Cherokee, and other counties to the north and east. This second prairie, as it might be denominated, lies at a slightly higher elevation, and is somewhat more rolling than the primary or coastal plain. The texture of the soils, general geological structure, and topographical features, as well as the distribution and growth of the arboreal vegetation, are also different.

Although such differences exist between these two great areas, they merge so closely into each other at places that it is often difficult to determine with any degree of exactness where the one ends and the other begins. At other portions of the line of contact the separation is distinctly marked by a series of high, sandy hills, covered more or less by a stratum of coarse, water-worn gravel and pebbles. Such a ridge or dividing line exists along the south side of Grimes county. This ridge begins, toward the south, in Waller county, and rises gradually from 225 feet at Hockley to 245 feet at Hempstead, a distance of 14 miles. At Howth, four miles north of Hempstead, the ridge reaches an elevation of 281 feet, and eight miles further north, near the line between Waller and Grimes counties, it attains its maximum height of over 300 feet above sea level.

Crossing this ridge, the county falls gently toward the north until, in