28 ON THE TIMBER LANDS TRAVERSED BY A 
chestnut oak, white oak, blue ash, &c.; and within about three: 
miles of Campbellsville white oak forms as much as fifty per 
cent. of the splendid forests. Scattered through the woods. 
are also found white walnut, tree of Paradise, fine black wal- 
nut, black cherry, iron-wood, shrub buckeye, big buckeye, red- 
bud, sassafras, dogwood, red oak, Spanish oak, scarlet oak, 
chestnut, red haw, black sumach, and pith elder. The entire 
absence of sweet gum, even from the swamps, all through the 
country, from the Cumberland river eastward, will have been. 
noticed. I could find no satisfactory reason for it. 
A long, dry shale level, covered principally with black, 
Spanish, and scarlet oak and black hickory, begins within 
about nine miles of Mansville (Buena Vista). Occasionally: 
the shale is cut across by small streams, and in the depres- 
sions white oak, laurel oak, water beech, winged elm, spotted! 
birch, and some chestnut are found. In some of these de- 
pressions, where the shale is always moist, the forests are 
very heavy, and white oak, chestnut, liriodendron, pig and. 
white hickory, black and Spanish oak, &c., abound. About 
three miles from Mansville, post oak and sweet gum are met. 
with again. 
At Mansville, on Robinson’s Creek, we pass onto Devoniam 
shale, and the timbers become nearly worthless, except on 
streams where the usual lowland timbers are found. 
About three miles beyond Mansville, toward Stanford, there: 
is a small belt of country, less than half mile in breadth, on 
which thirty per cent. of the undergrowth is white oak. I have: 
seen only two or three other spots in the State where any con- 
siderable proportion of the bushes consists of that timber. 
The tops of the hills in this locality are covered with post 
oak, scrub black oak, huckleberry, &c.; and the first moun- 
tain chestnut oak seen east of the Cumberland river is here: 
found. Pith elder and black sumach inhabit the fence-rows, 
with occasionally a shrub buckeye, some bushes of winged. 
elm, &c. The hills, in a wholly Devonian shale formation, 
are always low, and their timber growth is comparatively 
worthless, such as scarlet oak, post oak, Spanish oak, scrub 
198 
