Miscellaneous Notices in Opelousas, Attakapas, (Sfc. 345 



gradually filling up with vegetable matter, and are no doubt rich 

 in fossils of the mastodon, and perhaps other animals. During the 

 last summer I visited three localities, at which remains of the 

 mastodon have been found, and obtained some pieces. At one 

 place, a mile distant from the village of Opelousas, an entire skull 

 was disinterred, but it crumbled on exposure to the air, and noth- 

 ing remained except the teeth ; it must have been very large. It 

 was discovered in excavating, in very dry weather, in order to 

 deepen one of these marshy ponds for the use of stock. At about 

 six feet from the surface, they came to the head and some of the 

 vertebras, and then to a few ribs, all of which were in the natural 

 position, indicating the erect posture. Unfortunately, rain drove 

 them from the search, and on account of the increased depth of 

 the pond it has never been dug since.* 



A few days since, I visited a somewhat curious deposit of bitu- 

 minized wood in this parish, (East Feliciana,) the bituminization 

 being very perfect and very recent. It is at Port Hudson, on the 

 Mississippi River. The following is a description of the place. 

 The village is situated on a bluif, sixty or seventy feet high. 

 This bluff" reposes, as this whole country does, on a thick bed of 

 blue aluminous clay, which forms the beds of most of our water 

 courses, and wears, very slowly by the action of water. At that 

 place, the upper surface of the clay is considerably below high wa- 

 ter. The bluff" has been long falling in from being undermined 

 by springs,'which run out above the blue clay, and by the action 

 of the current of the Mississippi ; but the blue clay does not wear 

 away near as fast, and for this reason it extends some distance be- 

 yond the base of the bluff". It seems that upon this shelf, the 

 Mississippi has made a considerable deposit, of the common kind, 

 containing a great many fragments, and sometimes entire logs ; 

 after this deposit took place, a considerable mass of earth must 

 have fallen, covering the former one. The remarkably low wa- 

 ter, together with the removal of the superincumbent earth to 

 form a new landing place, has exposed the formation. The smaller 

 logs are often entirely bituminized, and changed into a glossy 

 black coal, in which no trace of fibre can be perceived ; still the 

 formation must be very recent, for in the most perfectly bitumin- 

 ized pieces there are frequent marks of the axe, looking as though 



* In the low lands bordering on the Calcasin River and Sabine, there are nu- 

 merous springs of petroleum. 



Vol. XXXV.— No. 2. 44 



