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These lakes were about——acres in extent, and at the time of our visit thousands of pounds of salt could have been had for the picking up.

I do not see why the gathering of this salt would not be a profitable enterprise.

THE TRINITY SANDS AS A PROBABLE SOURCE OF ARTESIAN WATER SUPPLY.

The name Trinity Sands has heretofore been made to embrace a much thicker strata than is intended to be covered in this report. It has been made to include all the strata from the top of the Paluxy Sands to the lowest sand beds overlying the Paleozoic area on the east. What I intend to call Trinity Sands in this paper are the sand beds below the alternating beds as seen a few miles east of Milsap, in Parker county. I believe that it is possible to separate the Trinity and Paluxy sands, and that in particular descriptions they ought not to be confounded or even put under the same name.

The Trinity Sands of Eastern and Central Texas are known to furnish abundant supplies of artesian water. The artesian water at Fort Worth, Dallas, Waco and Austin is from this bed. It is an important fact to determine whether or not the same sands of the western district will be as good a water producer as the eastern field.

The Trinity Sands along the eastern escarpment of the Staked Plains is co-extensive with the Cretaceous formation, and I do not know of a single locality from San Angelo to the Double Mountain Fork where the Cretaceous occurs that the Trinity Sands are not present.

There are two reasons why the western beds would not be as great water producers as those in the eastern district.

The first is, that the exposures are generally on the face of the high escarpment, where very little water would be taken up during the time of the rainfall. These beds are generally not the lower beds of the escarpment, and the sands that have washed down do not form beds from which the water falling on them would be taken up and conducted into the bottom of the stratum; and the escarpment is not at right angles with the dip, so as to take up all the water that falls, but is almost parallel with the dip, and the water is as liable to run away from the beds as toward them.

The second reason is, that the stratum is cut across in so many places by the canyons that no very great area could be embraced in the supply territory.

Along the northwestern border of the Cretaceous formation, which would naturally be the receiving basin, the waters from which would be carried by the dip of the Trinity Sands to other localities, the formation is covered up entirely by the newer beds at the top of the Staked Plains.