1561, 562] SURFACE CONFORMATION. 273 



THE FLATWOODS REGION. 



Comprising parts of the Counties of Tippah, Pontotoc, Lafayette, 

 Chickasaw, Calhoun, Choctaw, Ocktibbeha, Winston, Noxubee and 

 Kemper. 



561. Geographical Position and Surface Conformation. — The 

 level lands, timbered chiefly with Post Oak, often accompanied by 

 Black Jack and Short-leaf Pine, popularly styled the Flatwoods 

 (11164, ff.), form a narrow belt, which borders on the west, the cre- 

 taceous, or North-Eastern Prairie Region. The usual width of 

 the Flatwoods proper, is from three to six miles ; in some regions 

 the bordering hills encroach upon them so as to greatly reduce 

 their width ; in others, the hills recede so far as to enclose between 

 them a level tract of ten or twelve miles. Their outline is, there- 

 fore, much scolloped, and difficult to define with accuracy. Com- 

 mencing at the north, on the southern bank of Tippah Creek in 

 T. 4, R. 2 E., Tippah county (1169), they occupy the greater part 

 of R. 2 E. of the Chickasaw Survey. From the south-west corner 

 of Chickasaw county, they bear S. S. E., in the direction of DeKalb, 

 in Kemper county, where the Succarnoche river may be considered 

 their southern limit ; for beyond, they gradually lose their char- 

 acter and pass into the common yellow loam uplands of that 

 portion of Alabama. 



562. In their upper portion, down to Houlka creek, their eastern 

 limit is pretty sharply defined by the abrupt hills and deep ravines 

 of the Pontotoc Ridge, whose " Red Lands," with their growth of 

 " Poplar", Walnut, Hickory, Black, White and (true) Red Oaks, 

 contrast strongly with the white soil of the Flatwoods, and their 

 uniform growth of lank Post Oak and Short-leaf Pine ; their 

 general outline on this side being pretty correctly represented by 

 the Range line between RR. 2 and 3. Westward of the town of 

 Pontotoc, however, they approach within one mile of that place ; 

 the Houlka, also, carries them across the Range line for a short 

 distance. Then again, we meet them three-fourths of a mile west 

 of the town of Houston ; and for a few miles below, the yellow 

 loam hills are found skirting them, in a due south course. There, 

 however, the ridge turns south-eastward, in the direction of Sparta 

 (1122), and the Flatwoods follow it very nearly up to the latter 

 place, forming a large scollop to the eastward of the main body. 



With the Flatwoods of Octibbeha county, I am not personally acquainted ; 

 but from what I can learn, they are there bordered on the east, not by hills, but 

 mostly by level upland prairie. Such, also, is the case in S. Noxubee, and in 

 Kemper, where I have personally observed them. In passing from Gholson 

 towards Wahalak P. 0., it is difficult to say where Flatwoods cease and the 

 prairie begins ; in the eastern portion of the Flatwoods, though the kind of 

 R— 18 



