OF ARKANSAS. 



219 



40 



Light-colored earthy looking limestone, "white 

 rock." 



Magnesias limestone, containing galena, blende, 

 carbonate of zinc, and some copper pyrit 



gravity. Between Sul- 

 pher rock and Parson 

 Rogers' dwelling, it is 

 only eighty feet thick; 

 between Batesville and 

 Spring creek, it has ex- 

 panded to one hundred 

 and eighty feet or more. 

 It forms the substratum 

 upon which the town of Batesville is built, and crops out about one mile 

 to the north. Seven or eight miles south of Batesville, this member dips 

 beneath the drainage of the country. East and west, along its strike, it 

 can be traced as the surface rock from the highland, on Black river, pass- 

 ing through Sulphur rock and Batesville, to the western boundary of the 

 State. Though very persistent, in its lithological character, this member 

 is, at some places, almost entirely replaced by limestone, with, locally, 

 one or more beds of intercalated dark argillaceous shale. 



Member (e) was first observed, along my line of survey, at Mr. Mc- 

 Donald's, in a little branch called Shakeray, a tributary of Mud creek, 

 where it is not more than three or four feet thick, the upper part of a 

 dark-gray color, and splitting into large thin sheets. The lower part is 

 ferruginous, more compact, and quarries into blocks six or eight inches 

 thick; it will probably be found, when analyzed, to contain a considerable 

 amount of iron; in fact, wa.s impressed with the belief, while at some of 

 the localities of this shale, near Sulphur Rock and Batesville, that it would 

 prove to contain enough iron to justify smelting.* 



Going west from McDonald's, this black shale increases in thickness, 

 and is found in the bottom of wells, and in the deep cuts of ravines, as 

 far west as Spring creek, three miles north-west of Batesville, where it 

 attains a thickness of thirty-five feet or more; and though undoubtedly 

 belonging to the subcarboniferous period, has the lithological character of 

 the devonian black shales of Indiana and Kentucky. It is charged with 

 bitumen, possesses a strong, fetid odor, splits into thin sheets, and decom- 

 poses too easily to permit of its being used for roofing buildings. At 

 Spring creek, this member contains the same black, compact, and ferru- 

 ginous stratum found in the vicinity of Sulphur Rock, which is here 



*Owing to some nnknown cause, the packages shipped by me, early last spring, to the office of 

 the Arkanses Survey, have not yet been rec< ived. One of tin se packages contained the principal 

 specimens of this shale, collected in Independence county, the manganese ores from Dear Batesville, 

 and many other important samples of the rocks in that region: consequently do ani a, at 



present, be given. Enquiries have been instituted, and it is hoped these missing boxes may yet be 

 found at some of the shipping points along their route. 



