100 proceedings: geological society 



nent lakes. Such openings are found lioth inside and outside the areas 

 mapped as lakes, and other features, such as low ridges and depressions 

 and soil varieties, show Httle relation to the ''lakes" or to their "shore 

 lines." 



The "lakes" were first reported and mapped by the original public 

 land Survey oi about seventy-five years ago. The field work, like 

 much other public land surveying, was done under contract at a price 

 perhaps too low for thorough and honest work. The early maps have 

 been copied unquestioningly by all later ones, though strange to say- 

 there have been numerous later field examinations by various organi- 

 zations, some purporting to be fairly detailed surveys of one sort or 

 another, and few if any maps state that they are based on the land 

 survey. 



Ownership of the lands represented as lakes hangs on the correctness 

 of the original survey. If it was correct and the lakes have become 

 filled or drained their fertile beds must now be parceled out among 

 those owning bordering lands — the riparian claimants. If, however, 

 the old surveys were erroneous, the lands are now, it is said by lawyers, 

 the property of the nation and open to homestead. Up to about 1910 

 no one claimed the lands — perhaps because they were poorly protected 

 by levees and were more or less infested with malaria but perhaps to a 

 large extent because of the reputation given Arkansas by songs and 

 tales that have led homeseekers to pass over this rich State for less pro- 

 ductive lands farther west. As a matter of fact few if any lands yield 

 heavier crops of corn and cotton than those of northeast Arkansas, this 

 area seeming to be too far north for serious difficulty with the boll 

 weevil. In the past five years or since the question of title to the 

 "lakes" was first raised, squatters have taken possession so far as al- 

 lowed and there has been much contention between them and the 

 riparian claimants. 



The Department of Justice has brought suit to quiet the title to the 

 lands in the government and since there is almost no one living who 

 can testify as to whether or not the lands were lakes at the time of the 

 old survey, the waiter has been called upon at various times to deter- 

 mine if possible by the use of geology and physiography whether or not 

 one or another of the areas was a lake at the time of the old survey. 

 Ecologist H. C. Cowles was employed to gather for the same purpose 

 the testimony of the trees of the immense hardwood forests that cover 

 the "lakes" and surrounding land. 



At first it seemed probable that the geologic and ph^^siographic evi- 

 dence would be indecisive because the whole region has been subject to 

 annual overflow up to the time the levees were completed (and occa- 

 sionally since) and hence to more or less erosion and sedimentation. 

 It was found, however, that with the exception of the natural levee belts 

 bordering the Mississippi and the larger bayous and other tributaries, 

 erosion and sedimentation proceed very slowly and hence the presence 

 or absence of basins, shore features, lake deposits, etc., could be used. 



