126 GEOLOGICAL REPORT. [111)2, 193, i\)] 



appears) to those which appear at Quitman. Little chance for observation occurs 

 on the Enterprise and Quitman road, until within about 5^ miles of the latter 

 place, where we find outcropping in blut's and on hillsides, strata resembling 

 those of theLignitic luitherM , consisting ofaltei rating layers ol gray and yellow 

 sand, and gray and hi own clay. Whether or not this stratum undeilies the 

 Quitman marls, intervening between them and the Enterprise stiata, 1 have 

 been unable thus tar to determine with ceitainty ; the outciop occurring on 

 the banks ol the Chickasawhay near Quitman (see below) seems, however, to 

 render this supposition probable. 



B. THE CALCAREOUS CLAIBORNE STRATA. 



192. The area underlaid by this division of the tertiary is smaller, 

 apparency, than that occupied by any of the other groups. I am 

 not certain of its western limits, having examined it personally 

 only in Clarke county, on the Chickasawhay and its tributaries. 

 In the county just named, it does not give rise to any very linking 

 peculiarities in the surface conlormation. Though outcropping on 

 the banks of streams, and in the valleys, imparting to these a more 

 fertile soil and a forest growth indicative of the lime contained in 

 the former, it docs not, so far as I know, form any prairies — a fea- 

 ture of constant occurrence on the territory of the Jackson Group. 

 Not being in possession of any palceontologieal evidence concern- 

 ing the counties of ^cott and Newton, but learning that prairies 

 do exist there, on which the bones of the Ztvglcdon occur, 1 have 

 upon analogy supposed the tertiary strata of these counties to 

 belong to the Jackson Group, and have laid them down as such 

 on the map, for the present. 



193. The materials ol this division consist, so far as I have seen, 

 of blue, and white marls, the latter always sandy and often 

 indurate. ▼ 



In both, all fossils except the oysters are very poorly preserved, so as to ren- 

 der their recognition always difficult, often impossible. Its beds diiler remar- 

 kably, in this lespect, frcm those of Alabama, so noted for the tine preservation 

 of their fossils. 1 he mest northerly, and most westerly outcrop of the marl 

 of this division, which 1 have seen, ccouis under a bridge on Suanlovey Creek, 

 "W. S. \V. of Enterprise. It forms the bed, and a foot or two of the bank, of the 

 creek, for about 2LO yards; is of a bluish tint, speckled with white from the 

 detritus of shells, and si metimes contains indurate slabs. The oysters alone 

 are well preserved — Ostica divaricata, 0. sellaefuimis — the other shells are bio- 

 ken and mostly comminuted. PectenLyelli ?, a Turritella, and a Dentalium 

 were recognized. 



194. At Quitman, this marl is found in wells, and crops out near a sulphur 

 spring (Smith's Spring) S. of town — scarcely distinguishable frcm that on 

 Suanlovey. Ostrca divaricata, Pecten Lyelli, and Corbula i,iUosa. Lea, are the 

 only fossils which I have been able to recognize distinctly. The same marl 

 occurs in the branches in the neighborhood ol Quitman, and also, according to 

 reliable infoimation, on the waters ot the Buckatunna in S. E. Claike. 



On the banks of the Chickasawhay, W. of Quitman, we find a section exhib- 

 iting, beneath the surface materials, a stratum about one fcot thick, of gray, 

 very fat and tenacious, laminated clay, and beneath this, to the waters edge, a 

 bluish-gray, non-eflervescent, and non-fossiliferous clayey sand, with yellow 

 dots, which wash out readily, so as to produce a cellular surface. — If the marl 



