OF ARKANSAS. 87 



of Newton county, has taken advantage of this natural rock-house, to 

 make it serve as a roof, back, and part of the side walls to a house ; closing 

 in the south front with pine slabs, on either side of a stone chimney, and 

 cutting two doors and windows, he has managed to construct, at little ex- 

 pense and labor, a long, narrow room, about 8 by 30 feet, in which I found 

 two families, numbering 8 to 10 persons residing at the time of my visit. 

 Though somewhat contracted in the back part of the apartment, from the 

 sloping nature of the ceiling to the north ; still as the overhanging ledges 

 are sound and impervious to water, this half-natural and half-artificial 

 dwelling, I found more comfortable than many log cabins met with in the 

 Western States. 



Plate No. 10, is a sketch of this rock-house dwelling, taken from the 

 south-east. 



The primeval forest and vegetation surmounting the entablature of the 

 vestibule, reminded me forcibly of some of those remarkable habitations 

 exhumed by the enterprise of Stephens, in Yucatan, which have been so 

 interestingly and ably described by him, and beautifully depicted by 

 the artist Catherwood. Many of these, it will be remembered, had large 

 trees growing on the roof, and were often so completely concealed by dense 

 jungle, that they were only disclosed by the use of the machete, axe, and 

 shovel. 



CARROLL COUNTY-Coht 



INUED. 



The marble limestone is well developed in the southeast corner of Car- 

 roll county, as well as in adjacent sections of land in Newton, Searcy, and 

 Marion counties. On Marshall's creek it is underlaid by a sandstone, mostly 

 white, soft, and possessing the saccharoidal character of the sandstone 

 observed under the cavernous limestones of LafFerty creek, in the north- 

 western part of Independence County, and no doubt, occupies the same 

 geological horizon as the sandstone represented in plate 4, overlying the 

 lead-bearing rocks of the eastern part of this county, and the western part 

 of Marion. 



The block of marble sent from Arkansas, to be placed in the national 

 Washington monument, was quarried near the corner of Carroll and 

 Newton counties. 



At a tan-yard on Davis' creek, I saw a slab of this rock eight feet by two 

 and a half, which had been got out for a currier's table. The predomi- 

 nating color of this rock is gray, mottled and clouded with liver-colored 

 spots and stains. This slab was dressed smooth, but not polished ; when 



