1897.] 



ASHLEY — GEOLOGY OF ARKANSAS. 



303 



The Ovei'wash Gravels. 



Spread over both the Cretaceous and Carboniferous areas is an 

 overwash of gravels, sands and occasionally a little yellow clay. 

 These deposits are of great thickness along the northern edges of 

 the Cretaceous rocks, while, as a rule, they are but thin on the Car- 

 boniferous beds. These gravels and cobbles are well-rounded or 

 flattened fragments of novaculite of almost ev^ery color, from black 

 to white, yellow being most common, followed by gray, red, brown 

 and a mottling of these. Sandstone boulders are also mingled 

 with the novaculite pebbles. These water- worn boulders vary from 

 the size of one's fist down, but occasionally they are as large as 

 one's head. Sometimes a hillside is covered with the novaculite 

 boulders bleached so white that they resemble snow. 



Sometimes the gravels are cemented together by iron, forming a 

 conglomerate. Sometimes beds of considerable thickness are thus 

 cemented, as, for example, near Wolf Creek P. O., on Wolf creek, 

 Pike county. 



The character of the overwash gravels is well illustrated in a fresh 

 cut near the depot at Arkadelphia on the side of the road running 

 north to the business part of the town. 



Fk;. 36. — Section of gravel bed near the railway station at Arkadelphia. 



FEET. 



{a) A layer of sandy clay, red, mottled with gray, 

 at the bottom all gray, at the top all red 3-1 



(^) A layer of yellowish red gravel from very fine 

 to the size of a hen's ^gg or larger i^ 



