40 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES 
which will carry freight east and west. At Orange is a paper mill 
using the sulphite process with yellow pine. In the region about 
Orange artesian water is obtained from sands in the Coastal Plain 
succession, and a well at the dock flows 200 gallons a minute. (Turn 
to sheet 5.) 
In the lowlands west of Orange the southern margin of the ereat 
pine belt of southern Texas is crossed, and though there are many 
small farms of various crops, not much land is under cultivation. 
Cow Bayou, a tributary of the Sabine River, is crossed about 8 miles 
west of Orange. 
Small mounds are noticeable here and there west of Orange, most 
of them from 3 to 5 feet high and a few yards in diameter. They are 
“pimple mounds,” similar to those mentioned on page 29. Six miles 
southwest of Orange is a group of derricks of the Orange oil field. 
This field, discovered in 1913, has had 416 borings, but at the end of 
1930 only 86 wells were in operation, with a total yearly production 
of 790,000 barrels. The total production of the field to the end of 
1930 was 27,716,594 barrels.** Some of the borings are 6,000 feet 
deep. No salt has been encountered. Another small field at Bessie 
Heights, some distance farther southwest, has a few deep wells and 
so far only a moderate supply of oil. 
This is a region of wide level prairies with scattered clumps of pines 
and a few swamp areas of small extent. Just before reaching Beau- 
mont the railroad crosses the Neches River (nay’chase), one of the 
moderately large streams of eastern Texas. Near Beaumont a swamp 
extends along its east side. In 1834 fair-sized steamboats were navi- 
gating the Neches, Trinity, and Brazos Rivers, with smaller boats 
using the lesser streams. 
Beaumont is an important commercial center for eastern Texas, 
and its prosperity is indicated by the fact that its population increased 
40 per cent in the decade from 1920 to 1930. From 
Beaumont. Beaumont to its mouth the Neches River has been 
eer ea, dredged out as a ship canal (opened in 1917), 26 feet 
New Orleans 279 miles. deep and 150 feet wide, capable of carrying vessels of 
as much as 15,000 tons dead weight, and it serves as 
an avenue for commerce, which in 1930 aggregated nearly 12,000,000 
tons. The canal reaches Sabine Lake, 17 miles southeast of Beau- 
mont, and, passing along the east shore of that water body, finds 
outlet through Sabine Pass into the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of 
about 35 miles. Sabine Lake and Sabine Pass are the drowned valleys 
of the Neches and Sabine Rivers, a condition doubtless resulting from 
subsidence in Recent geologic time. A large basin excavated at the 
*! These figures and some other totals | Assoc. Bull. 1, 1930. The yearly figures 
for the other oil fields in Texas are are those published by the U. S. Bureau 
taken from Texas Gulf Coast Oil Scouts | of Mines. 
