DISTRICT WEST OF THE TENNESSEE RIVER. 19 
In the Clark river bottom, four miles from Paducah, consid- 
erable cypress is found. The shag hickory, sweet gum, and 
white oak, even this near to Paducah, are very fine and heavy, 
and vary from twenty-four to forty inches in diameter. A good 
deal of liriodendron, often four feet in diameter, is also found, 
as well as some white ash, redbud, etc. Black locust and 
iron-wood are also met with. Six miles from Paducah, about 
thirty per cent. of the timbers is white oak, and about six per 
cent. of them liriodendron. Black oak forms about fi.teen per 
cent. of the old forest growth, and of the young forest growth, 
which is very heavy, about thirty-five per cent. Black, shag, 
and pignut hickories and Spanish oak are the other forest 
timbers. These timbers remain essentially unchanged, with 
the exception of local alterations, for a distance of five miles. 
Here the road becomes a more or less bare, white sandy 
ridge, with Clark river off to the right. Along the road,the 
timbers for some miles are not valuable, and consist nearly 
altogether of black oak, Spanish oak, black-jack, post oak, 
and black hickory. On Clark river, the bottom is wide and 
the timbers are very valuable. On Tennessee river, off to 
the left of the road as I traveled towards Benton, the valuable 
timbers are nearly all cut out. White oak and liriodendron, 
as well as white ash, are found on nearly all the small streams. 
About five miles from Benton the country becomes more 
hilly, and the timbers more sharply divided into upland and 
lowland timbers. The former are Spanish oak, black oak, 
post oak, black-jack, and black hickory; the latter are white 
oak, white ash, liriodendron, white elm, shag hickory, syca- 
more, and red birch. Bartram oak is also found along all 
streams. The hilly character of the country continues for 
about one mile, when the East Fork of Clark river is reached. 
The swamp land, or bottom, here, is fully two and one half 
miles wide, and the timbers throughout the whole are of the 
very finest. The white oak is often four feet in diameter, 
with height in proportion, sweet gum forty inches in diam- 
eter, black and shag hickory thirty-six inches in diameter, 
with beautiful trunks, sixty feet in height without a limb. 
1550 
