1567, 568, 569 flatwoods soils. 276 



clays arc very common on bluffs and hillsides throughout the 

 region. While wet, they appear dark gray or almost black, but 

 when dry they are usually of a light gray, and sometimes almost 

 white. When in their natural place, or recently thrown out, they 

 usually possess either a slaty structure, or else, and most frequently, 

 a tendency to split into rounded, nodular forms, familiar to every 

 one who has traversed the Flatwoods. 



This "Flatwoods clay" (H"165) does not readily "dissolve" or form a plastic 

 paste with water ; but whenever by dint of repeated kneading (such as the 

 wheels of vehicles will perforin) it has been made to form a paste, its tenacity 

 is such as to be scarcely exceeded by the most approved " prairie mud." Nor 

 can the black prairies of Pontotoc and Monroe, during the wet season, present 

 more formidable obstacles to the wagoner, than do the bottoms and hillsides of 

 the Flatwoods region. Hence the great frequency among its streams, of such 

 names as Mud Creek, and others still more eloquently expressive of the awe 

 in which they are held by those who are habitually obliged to traverse the 

 Flatwoods. 



567. There are two chief varieties of soil usually found in the 

 Flatwoods proper ; and these two are at opposite extremes of the 

 scale of lightness. One of these is little else than the Flatwoods 

 clay above described, disintegrated and formed into a stratum 

 possessing a massy* cleavage, of a gray tint, with red or yellow 

 spots, and changing but little from the surface down to where the 

 clay still retains its orginal structure. The other variety is in the 

 main, a very fine, almost pulverulent, sand or silt, of a gray tint, 

 and with ferruginous dots ; which lower down, sometimes pass into 

 bog ore or " black gravel " (1387). This soil, also, shows but little 

 change from the surface downwards, save that in many places, it 

 has for its subsoil the heavy gray clay soil above mentioned ; in 

 others, wells twenty feet deep have shown it to be the same at the 

 bottom as on the surface. 



568. Both soils are timbered nearly alike, with Post Oak of a 

 lank, gawky growth, with long, thin branches, commencing low 

 down on the trunk ; the main braach.es often covered with leaves 

 close to the bark. 



Such is invariably, and more characteristically, the case on the light soil, 

 which in low places, not unfrequently bears a small growth of Willow Oak, 

 accompanied very generally by small Huckleberry bushes. On the heavy soil, 

 the Post Oak often assumes a sturdier growth, and is at times entirely replaced 

 by the Black Jack, which on this soil, very generally mingles with the Post 

 Oak ; as also does the Short leaf Pine and Spanish (" Red ") Oak, which rarely 

 appear on the light soil ; and when they do, are usually an indication of the 

 heavy clay subsoil not being far underground. 



569. The heavy soil is, on the whole, by far the most prevalent of the two. 

 So far as I know, it is only in N. Pontotoc and N. Chickasaw counties that the 

 light soil occupies tracts of any considerable extent. Thus, it constitutes exten- 

 sive tracts between the waters of the Tallahatchie Mud Creek and Lubatubby, 

 and on the extreme headwaters of Yallabusha and Houlka, in N. W. Chickasaw. 



*By "massy" cleavage is meant that the material when cracked or broken, 

 shows no tendency to cleave in any particular direction by preference. The word 

 implies, therefore, very nearly what is popularly expressed in "joint clay". 



