68 GEOLOGICAL RECONNOISSANCE 



the cliffs in the foreground of this landscape, is part of the conglomerate 

 and millstone grit formation that intervenes between the overlying coal 

 measures proper, and the underlying subcarboniferous limestone. 



When water-worn pebbles are disseminated through such sandstones, 

 subordinate to the coal measures, they have received the name of conglo- 

 merates or pebbly sandstones ; when pebbles are absent, and the rock con- 

 stitutes merely a coarse-textured sandstone, it is called millstone grit. 

 Both these varieties occur in White county, along the escarpments of Lit- 

 tle Red river, which attain a thickness of 150 to 200 feet, imparting wild 

 and romantic scenery to the country, for many miles along the bank of 

 this stream. They constitute, also, the nucleus of the backbone ridge that 

 runs from the Bee rock to Patterson's mill. At the latter locality, the 

 impression of a peculiar extinct plant, characteristic of the early carboni- 

 ferous era, known as the stigmaria ficoides, was discovered, imbedded in 

 the sandstone, which would prove conclusively the age of this sandstone 

 formation, if other evidence were wanting. 



A particle of gold, the size of a flaxseed, is said to have been pumped 

 up with the sand from the bed of Little Red river, at Patterson's mill. 

 Even if this is correct information, it is not probable that quantities of 

 this metal, sufficient to pay for the extraction, could be washed out of the 

 sands of Little Red river, since it does not flow, along any part of its 

 course, over rocks such as have yielded profitable quantities of this pre- 

 cious metal in other countries. 



The dip of these sandstones on this part of Little Red river, is 1| deg. 

 to 2 deg. to the south, or a little west of south. The base of this forma- 

 tion, at this point, is schistose in its structure, i. e., thin bedded, becoming, 

 however, more solid and massive in its upper part. 



Some segregations of iron ore occur about 10 feet above the water of 

 Little Red river, near the mill, but they are, here, too siliceous to constitute 

 a good quality of ore for the manufacture of iron. 



Three miles north-west of Searcy, at a "bald point," in the vicinity of 

 the widow Gilbert's farm, sixty feet of shaly strata are exposed, dark or 

 nearly black, in its lower part, and reddish yellow and ferruginous towards 

 the top. This shale includes numerous segregations of carbonate of iron 

 and carbonate of lime ; the latter containing several fossil marine shells, 

 amongst which the nautilus ferratus was discovered, a species which 

 occurs in the ferruginous shales of Nolin, in Edmonson county, Ky. 



Until levels are run, which it is contemplated doing hereafter, during 

 the progress of the detailed surveys in the individual counties, it is difficult 

 to pronounce positively on the relative geological position of these shales, 

 with reference to the sandstones of the Bee rock ; but, judging from the 



