30 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES 
at intervals far into eastern Texas and over a wide area in the region 
north. Their origin is unknown, although many theories have been 
advanced to account for them. 
The city of Lake Charles is attractively located on the wooded 
shores of Lake Charles, a broad expansion of the Calcasieu River, 
one of the principal streams of southwestern Louisi- 
ana (formerly called the Rio Hondo). The name 
Calcasieu is derived from that of an Indian tribe 
_which once occupied the region and is now repre- 
sented by a few descendants living in the northern 
part of Calcasieu Parish. This river, which is crossed west of the 
town, was the resort of slavers in the early days when the region 
west to the Sabine River was neutral territory between Mexico 
and the United States. The name of the city is taken from the 
lake, which was named for Joseph Charles, an old settler. This city 
is the farthest inland of the Gulf ports, being 75 miles from the coast, 
with which it is connected by a 30-foot channel dredged through the 
river, Calcasieu Lake, and Calcasieu Pass, at the joint expense of 
the parish and the United States. This channel has no tide and 
no locks. The harbor basin has accommodations for all classes of 
ocean vessels, by which it ships more rice than any other port in this 
country. One of the three large mills in the city manufactures 
cellulose from rice hulls and is said to be the only plant of its kind 
in the world. Considerable cotton is raised near by, and lumbering 
is an important industry. 
In the marshlands of Cameron Parish, south of Lake Charles, are 
two isolated domes, the Hackberry and the East Hackberry, which 
produce a large amount of petroleum. The latter was discovered in 
1926 by means of seismograph survey in a region where there are 
no surface indications of geologic structure. The oil is derived largely 
from sand of Miocene age * at a depth of 3,900 feet, but oil is also 
produced from sand over the “cap rock,”’ which lies about 2,955 feet 
below the surface. One 6,995-foot hole is in shale of supposed Jack- 
son (Eocene) age. From 1927 to the end of 1930 a little more than 
4,000,000 barrels of oil was produced from 50 wells in this district, 
according to the United States Bureau of Mines. 
Lake Charles is about at the eastern margin of the great pine belt 
which extends westward to and beyond Beaumont, Tex., and far to the 
Lake Charles. 
Elevation 16 feet. 
Population 15, 791. 
220 miles 
mostly fine grained, representing the 
Pliocene and Miocene, 5,000 feet or 
more; older Tertiary gray silty sand, 
%” The subsurface geology of this part 
of Louisiana as revealed by borings is as 
follows: Recent marsh deposits of much 
sand and clay, about 50 feet; sand and 
gravel of the Beaumont formation (350 
feet) and Lissie formation (650 feet); 
a thick succession of blue sandy silt, 
blue and gray sl _— clay, blue- 
green shale, and clean sand, 
lain by heavy shale believed to be of 
Jackson age. (Bauernschmidt.) (See 
also table, p. 19.) 
