268 BULLETIN lOa, UNITED STATES NATIONM^ MUSEUM. 



firmation of the observations previously made by Hilgard, going by 

 land, in 1859 ; of this exploration, also, no detailed record or report 

 is on file. 



No field work was done by Doctor Little in 1868, partly because 

 by consent of the governor he was then acting as professor of geology 

 and mineralogy at the university, in addition to the survey work in 

 the laboratory and collection rooms. 



In October, 1870, however, he definitely resigned the State geolo- 

 gistship for the professorship of geology and natural history in the 

 university, and in order to prevent the survey from being either 

 abolished or falling into the wrong hands, Hilgard again assumed 

 its direction without additional compensation, it being understood 

 that he should be under no obligation to take the field personally. 



In November, 1868, the assistantship had been filled by the appoint- 

 ment of Dr. Eugene A. Smith, of Alabama, then just returned from 

 his studies in Europe. Doctor Smith took hold of the work with 

 energy, although the first duties were not of the most interesting 

 character — namely, the farthest prosecution of the analyses of soils 

 and marls selected so as to cover, as nearly as possible, ill parts of the 

 State. This work was carried on by him through the year 1869 and a 

 portion of 1870. 



In September of the latter year he took the field with the usual out- 

 fit of a two-mule ambulance and driver. There were then two regions 

 in the State that had not been at all satisfactorily explored — one the 

 belt northward of the Jackson area, of which only the portions lying- 

 in Neshoba and Lauderdale counties on the eastern border of the 

 State, and a small area in Attala County, near the Central Railroad 

 had been somewhat minutely examined. This being the connecting 

 link between the " northern lignitic " and calcareous marine stages, 

 its examination was of especial interest, but at the same time a 

 difficult task on account of the extreme variability of its materials 

 and fossils and the scarcity of outcrops. The other comparatively 

 unknown region was the great " Yazoo bottom," the geological ex- 

 ploration of which had become of especial interest in connection with 

 the question of the age of the formations of the Gulf coast and Delta. 



While the latter region was to be the chief objective point of the 

 first expedition. Doctor Smith availed himself of the opportunity of 

 observing a section across the older Tertiary in passing from Oxi'ord 

 to Yazoo City by way of the Pontotoc " flatwoods," Kosciusko, and 

 Jackson. 



He then descended into the Yazoo bottoms and tra\ersed tlieiii, zig- 

 zagging from the river to the bluff from near Vicksburg to its head 

 near Memphis. On this laborious and insalubrious trip he studied 

 both the surface features of the great alluvial plain and the geological 



