456 Harper: Explorations in Georgia 1904 



where, and with the siliceous rocks just mentioned, are as yet very 



uncertain. 



In Stewart County there Is a remarkable area of genuine pine- 

 barrens, which I first noticed in 1901,* and examined more care- 

 fully in the latter part of May^ 1904. It is situated immediately 

 south of Omaha, on a plateau which is bounded abruptly on the 

 north by Hannahatchee Creek, and on the west by the Chattahoo- 

 chee River bottoms, and is elevated something like 100 feet above 

 both streams. The southern and eastern limits of the plateau have 

 not been ascertained, but the pine-barrens occupy at least a square 

 mile in the northwestern corner of it. What makes this pine-bar- 

 ren area remarkable is the fact that it is well withm the Cretaceous 

 region (having unmistakable exposures of Cretaceous rocks north, 

 south, east and west of it) and is separated from the rest of the 

 pine-barrens by the whole width of the Eocene and part of the 



w m 



Cretaceous, a distance of thirty or forty miles. Although Fims 

 palustris, the characteristic tree of the pine-barrens, is scattered 

 more or less over the whole Cretaceous region o{ Georgia, yet 

 nowhere else in that remon have I seen it constituting the bulk of 



fc. 



the forest as in the place here described. In the Eocene region it 

 is still rarer, and one may go from Cuthbert twenty miles north- 

 ward on the road to Lumpkin without seeing a single specimen of 

 it, Its place being taken there mostly by P, echinata. 



The pine-barrens near Omaha are nearly level, and contain sev- 

 eral ponds, at least one of which probably holds water all the year 

 round. (See figure 3.) The whole aspect of the place is much like 

 that of some of the pine-barrens in the Lower Oligocene region (in 

 Sumter County, for instance), and totally unlike that ol the typical 

 Cretaceous country, which is carved into broad valleys and rather 

 narrow ridges, indicating a comparatively ancient topography. 

 The long-leaf pines grow fully as large as they do anywhere, 

 and I measured a stump of one which was 38 inches in diameter. 

 The pines of low grounds are P, scrotina and P. Tacda, instead 

 of P, ElUottii, which ranges throughout the typical pine-barrens 

 in similar situations. The following shrubs and herbs are common 

 to this area and the typical pine-barrens, and are rare or want- 

 ing in the Eocene and the rest of tlie Cretaceous : Auchistca vir- 



* See Bull. Torrey Club 30 : 2S7, 325. 1903. 



