BERRY: MESOZOIC FLORA OF ATLANTIC COASTAL PLAIN 61 
becoming increasingly clear that a large body of Upper Cretaceous 
deposits across Tennessee and Kentucky has disappeared during 
the formation of the Tennessee valley, so that in Selma and Ripley 
time the shoreline was some distance to the east of the present 
outcrop of these deposits and there was a considerable re-entrant 
or bay extending eastward from the head of the late Cretaceous 
Mississippi Gulf. : 
These relatively slight geographical changes are not believed 
to show any reflection in the facies of the flora, nor is it believed 
that their position with relation to the Atlantic or their difference 
in latitude would have an appreciable effect, since the correspond- 
ing floras extend over many degrees of latitude without appreciable 
changes as is also true of the contemporaneous marine faunas. 
The few Ripley plants previously recorded were coriaceous decay- 
resisting forms that might have been transported for considerable 
distances, but those from Henry and Carroll Counties present 
every indication of having lived in the vicinity where they were 
preserved. Their state of preservation indicates this as well as 
the abundance of small delicate and long slender forms. There 
could have been no wave action where these fine-grained clay 
lenses were deposited so that the clay owes its origin to the settling 
from suspension of muds either in a sheltered lagoon along the 
coast or in a quiet estuary or bayou of a slow moving stream. 
The clay is not black and carbonaceous in so far as it is exposed, but 
the thickness seen is inconsiderable and immediately below the 
upper. contact with the sands so that nothing is known of the 
character of the lower clay. 
The sands are coarse beach and barrier beach sands and the 
clay lenses tend to have their long axis approximately parallel 
to the old coast line. In general character the relations are very 
similar to those which obtain during the lower Eocene in this 
same region. This argillaceous horizon is a rather persistent one, 
consisting of disconnected lenses of greater or less extent which 
extend in a north and south direction for a distance of at least 
50 miles across Henry and Carroll Counties. Farther north in 
Henry County there is a considerable bed of lignite upwards of 
20 inches thick exposed, but none is seen near the plant-bearing 
outcrops nor is the base of the clay exposed. 
