140 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1895. 



several beds of lignite and several beds bolding marine fossils and 

 usually characterized by the presence of glauconite or greensaud. 64 



According to Smith and Johnson the lignites appear to be more 

 numerous and thicker toward the west, while eastward of the 

 Alabama River they become, as a rule, inconspicuous and possess no 

 very well marked characters by which they may be distinguished 

 from one another. On the other hand the Marine beds retain their 

 characteristic features and peculiar association of fossils, are easily 

 recognizable and may be followed with the greatest ease. 



In Mississippi the Lignitic comprises a series of lignitiferous strata 

 with iuterstratified beds of brown, yellow and gray sands and clays 

 containing marine fossils and plant remains. 00 



These beds also occur in Southern Arkansas at the Ouachita Coal- 

 mining Company's mines at Lester, about seven miles north of 

 Camden. Here the section shows heavy beds of dark blue clay 

 enclosing a deposit of lignite from 6 to 10 feet thick. The higher 

 hills in this neighborhood are capped with the red and white sands 

 and clays typical of the Queen City beds of Texas, and as already 

 stated the southwestern portion of Miller county belongs geologically 

 to the Texas beds. 



Hill describes the basal or lignitic strata of southwestern Arkansas 

 under the local names of the Camden series and Cleveland county 

 red lands. The former, he says, "is an extensive shallow water, 

 marine formation of stratified, micaceous, non-indurated alternating 

 laminae of sands and clay shales, sandy shales, thin sandstones 

 (quartzites), etc.," 66 and considers them a continuation of similar 

 stratigraphic conditions from other counties of Louisiana, Arkansas 

 and Texas from the southward. His Cleveland "red lands" consti- 

 tute a fossiliferous horizon at or near the top of the Camden series, 

 and consists of the characteristic sediments of that series, but is 

 accompanied by extensive deposits of marine shells and greensaud,'" 

 and are identical with the iron bearing red lands of Rusk, Cherokee 

 and other counties in northeast Texas. 



A personal examination of much of the Tertiary areas of Arkan- 

 sas leads me to very different conclusions from those drawn by Prof. 



,;i Bull. U. 8. (!. 8., 43, p. 39. 

 65 Hull. U. S. G. S., 83. p. 67. 



Vol. II. Ami. Rep. Geol. Survey of Ark., 1888, p. 49. 

 " 7 Geol. Survey of Ark., Vol. II. ,,(' 1888, p. 58. 



