214 GEOLOGICAL RECONNOISSANCE 



creek, six miles from the mouth, and have proved of excellent quality for 

 corn. 



The coarse-grained saccharoidal sandstone (/) in the vertical section of 

 the rocks in Lawrence county is mostly of a dark red color, but locally 

 very white, and occasionally ornamented with buff-colored bands. This 

 sandstone makes its appearance in the south-eastern part of the county, 

 near. Mr. Campbell's, caps the hills on Big creek (Williams creek), four 

 miles south of the zinc furnace at Calamine, and extends in a north-west 

 course through " Evening Shade," or Hookram, as it is usually called, and 

 continues on through Fulton and Marion counties; universally covered 

 with a luxuriant growth of yellow pine. 



The orange sand (/') and the water-worn gravel bed (j) were seen in 

 the vicinity of Powhatan, the former corresponds to the ferruginous sand 

 belonging to the quarternary in Greene and Randolph counties. The 

 western limits of these two deposits is somewhere near range 4 west, 

 since I was not able to discover either it or the gravel bed west of that 

 line; in fact, I was not able to detect the ferruginous sand west of the line 

 between ranges three and four. 



At Powhatan the citizens were extremely anxious to know if stone coal 

 did not exist close by, as fragments had been found on the river sand-bars, 

 which, it was supposed, had been broken from the main deposit and trans- 

 ported by the water. For their information, I may here state, that the true 

 coal-bearing rocks do not exist in the counties through which Black 

 river flows; nor yet in Greene county, where some of its tributaries take 

 their rise; hence there is no probability of discovering beds of bituminous 

 coal; but there are beds of lignite amongst the quarternary deposits of this 

 latter county, some of which has very much the appearance of coal. I 

 am disposed, however, to think that the lumps of coal found on the sand- 

 bars, were most likely dropped from the steamboats navigating the river. 



Agriculture. 



The upland soils of Lawrence county, west of Black river, are derived 

 chiefly from the cherty and earthy magnesian limestones of the lower 

 silurian period, and its overlying- sandstones. Soils derived from the 

 quarternary are limited to some of the ridges bordering on Black river, 

 east of range four. The soils selected in this county, for analysis, Avere 

 collected on section 15, township 17 north, range 2 west, overlying and 

 derived from the buff, earthy, magnesian limestones of the lower silurian 

 system. 



Eait of Black river the soils are essentially alluvial, like those of the 



