22 REPORT ON THE TIMBERS 
‘found in great abundance. The formation is a wide and 
marshy swamp in the coal measures. Black walnut is scarce, 
and pin oak is large and noticeable immediately on the creek. 
After crossing Lick creek one enters the splendid “belt” of 
‘timbers elsewhere noticed. The ground is high, level, sandy, 
and moist. The liriodendron and white oak are unsurpassed, 
and the white, shag, and pig hickories and white ash are of 
the finest. Bartram oak, which usually grows on low or moist 
grounds, flourishes. The undergrowth is composed principally 
of hickory and black oak, of which about equal proportions 
exist. I have only noticed one other location in Kentucky, of 
any considerable extent, where the black oak has a rival for 
the first place among the undergrowth. 
On Clear creek a great deal of swamp laurel oak is found, 
often twenty-six inches in diameter. Near Providence the 
fine “belt” timber gives out again, one passes from the high, 
level, sandy soil onto a rolling formation, whose foot-hill tim- 
bers are largely white oak, which gives way to post oak, black 
oak, scarlet oak, and black hickory toward the hill-tops. But 
little change is noted in the timbers until Crab Orchard creek 
is crossed. Then one traverses a flat, white, sandy level, 
where Spanish oak, red oak, post oak, and black hickory form 
the entire forest. The belt is narrow, and the normal timbers 
are met with after crossing it. It is worth notice that the 
western cottonwood is found on Crab Orchard creek, where 
also the white ash is very fine. 
After crossing Crab Orchard creek the road is almost im- 
perceptibly ascending, and one soon reaches the top of a high, 
level ridge, varying from one to three miles in width, which 
forms a water-shed that lasts nearly to the Ohio river, with 
one or two streams cutting across it between Crab Orchard 
creek and the Ohio. Along the foot-hill exposure of this 
ridge toward Tradewater the white oak, liriodendron (where 
it is not cut away), white ash, sweet gum, and other valuable 
timbers abound. Along the road itself, owing to the naturally 
high position above drainage, a change of level of a few feet 
is sufficient to make the white oak give way to post oak and 
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