34 GEOLOGICAL REPORT. [161, 62 



does not often occur in large masses ; usually in nodules or " galls," 

 from the size of a pea to that of a fist, and sometimes larger. 

 These galls are most commonly found in strongly ferruginous 

 " hardpan" (a semi-indurate mixture of fine sand and clay) but 

 indistinctly stratified ; and thus forms striking objects on the other- 

 wise uniform, deeply colored surface. They occur chiefly in the 

 eastern portion of the State, from the Tennessee line down to 

 Hancock county — thus on the Pontotoc Ridge • on the sandy ridges 

 of Noxubee and Kemper, W. of the Flatwoods ; in N. W. Wayne 

 county, on the ridges bordering on the Chickasawhay (in the latter 

 region, it occurs in nodules of some size imbedded in white sand : 

 the clay is very pure and is used as chalk and for whitewashing) ; 

 and in Hancock county, where the Orange Sand hills border on 

 the plains of the Sea-Coast. In all the localities mentioned, however, 

 the quantity is too small to render the material of much practical 

 importance. 



61. A large deposit of white pipeclay of great purity, however, 

 occurs in Tishomingo county, chiefly on the southern portion of the 

 territory of the carboniferous formation, following very nearly its 

 western outline. It there forms a regular stratam of considerable 

 extent, which in one locality at leastwas found to be more than 3o feet 

 in thickness. The bed attains its best development, so far as the 

 quality of the material is concerned, in the northern portion of T. 

 5 and in T. 4, R. 11 E., where it is about 30 feet underground in 

 the uplands, though at times appearing in limited outcrops on banks 

 of the streams. North-eastward and south-westward from the 

 region mentioned, the bed also occurs, but changed in character — 

 at least near the surface — to a white gritty hardpan. or clays of 

 various colors and much less purity. It forms the lowest visible 

 portion of the Orange Sand formation, and is almost invariably 

 overlaid by strata of pebbles or pudding-stone, which in their turn 

 are sometimes overlaid by the common orange-colored sand. 



62. The most southerly exposure of these beds, known to me, 

 occurs on a small branch of McDouglas' mill creek, on S3. 4 and 

 9, T. 6, R. 10 E., near Mr. Pannel's place. For more than a mile 

 along this branch, there are exposures in which about £0 feet of a 

 whitish mass, varying from a fine clayey sand to a white plastic 

 clay, appears overlaid by thick beds (20-40 feet) of ferruginous 

 pebble conglomerate ; the latter in its turn, being overlaid by the 



