OF ARKANSAS. 



221 



garded as a favorable symptom and indicative of its origin from beneath. 



In this formation, in the vicinity of Lafferty creek, rich beds of manga- 

 nese ore have been found at several places.* The most remarkable 

 occurrence of this ore, within my range of observation, is on the property 

 of Mr. Martin Cason's in section 34, township 14 north, range G west, three 

 miles north of Batesville. Here it does not occur in veins, but in regularly 

 stratified beds, splitting up into rusty slabs two or three inches thick, and 

 containing imbedded sub-spheroidal concretions of a harder and more 

 metallic appearance than the matrix ore; in size they vary from a half to 

 one inch in diameter. This segregated ore is not inappropriately called, 

 " Button ore/'t It is well exposed at Mr. Cason's, on the slope of a hill 

 in his field, where, in fact, he actually turns it up in great sheets while 

 cultivating his land with the plow. After it has been exposed to the 

 atmosphere for a short time, decomposition take* place, producing a black 

 soil more fertile than any other portion of his farm. Shafts have been 

 sunk into the ore at this place, fifteen feet in depth, without reaching the 

 bottom. The ore-bed is overlaid by a coarse-grained entrochital limestone, 

 which has four feet of its base colored red and filled with the aforemen- 

 tioned button-shaped concretions of manganese ore. 



The position and appearance of the ore, at this locality, render it highly 

 probable that beds of limestone, previously existing, have been replaced 

 by infiltrated oxide of manganese. 



The saccharoidal sandstone (c) was best seen in the eastern and north- 

 ern part of the county on Bayou Doty and Bayou Cury, where it has a 

 thickness of fifty or seventy-five feet. Jt is a coarse-grained, slightly 

 cemented rock, possessing a variety of shades of color, from pure white 

 to deep red. This variegated sandstone underlies the subcarboniferous 

 limestones (d.) and rests on magnesian limestones of lower silurian date 

 but being destitute of fossils we are, at present, not prepared to say posi- 

 tively to what geological period it belongs. 



The earthy looking limestone (o.) is found associated with and over the 

 lead bearing magnesian limestone of the lower silurian period, and is 

 usually known in the vicinity where it occurs, by the name of "white 

 rock," or " cotton rock." This is a very constant member in the slopes 

 of the hills, in the northern counties, where lead ores have been dis- 

 covered. 



The massive magnesian limestone (/.) is a continuation downwards of 



* See Report of Dr. D. D. Owen, State Geologist. 



t The specimens collected at this locality, and shipped, have not yet arrived. The economical 

 value cannot therefore be reported on. 



