514 K. T. HILL THE COMANCHE SEKIES. 



those about Meridian, Jouesboroiigli and Valley mills, and the Jehosaphat 

 plateau of Travis county and western Williamson county. It is seen in 

 grand bluffs along the Nolan river at Blum, and in some of the smaller 

 streams near Fort Graham; it outcrops in the creek at Belton, and makes 

 up the whole surface of the broad mesa, extending thence westward for sev- 

 eral miles to the point where it makes the cap of the great bluff facing west- 

 ward — a magnificent illustration of the relations of uniform and gentle dip, 

 together with comparative hardness, to the processes of erosion. It caps 

 the buttes as far west as Kempner and southward toward Florence, where 

 it makes again the level surface of the mesa. Pilot knob, north of Liberty 

 hill, Williamson county, and many of the buttes high up the Colorado about 

 Anderson mills, are capped by it. The Caprlna terrane is usually covered 

 with a thick growth of scrubby oaks and similar trees, especially where the 

 outcrop is not of large area and the rock comes near the surface. In places 

 there are broad fertile prairies upon its outcrop, as about Pancake and 

 Turnersville. 



It has been stated that the Caprlna is uniform throughout. In the south- 

 ern portion of its area there is an exception to this rule, and it might be divided 

 into an upper or flinty member, and a lower or chalky subdivision. The 

 flints first appear in the vicinity of Meridian, but only as a few fragments ; 

 and they increase very rapidly southward, being seen in grand development 

 about Belton. In the northern part of the region they are comparatively 

 large, oval, flattened nodules, usually of black flint. These occur through- 

 out the larger part of the region studied, extending southward at least as 

 far as Pilot knob, a few miles north of Liberty hill, and thence on to the 

 Rio Grande. 



The GGodkuid Limestone. — Like all the other deeper deposits of Texas, 

 the Comanche Peak group thickens southAvard and thins northward. In no 

 place does its thickness as a whole exceed or even attain 500 feet ; and from 

 the Colorado northward it decreases in thickness until, one subdivision grad- 

 ually disappearing at a time, it is represented in southern Indian teriitory 

 by a single persistent layer, which in my Paris-Kiamitia section I have given 

 the name Goodland limestone.^ This formation resembles the Caprlna lime- 

 stone in hardness, but has the Comanche Peak fauna; the Exogyra texana 

 layers do not appear until 200 miles west of the Arkansas line. Proceeding 

 westward along the ancient Ouachita shore-line from Arkansas into Texas, 

 the Exogyra texana beds (the Walnut clays and Gryphcea breccia) are miss- 

 ing until the escarpment is reached north of Marietta, in the Chickasaw 

 nation, where they first appear, thinly represented, beneath the Goodland 

 limestone and above the sands which, as before stated, are supposed to be the 

 homologue of the Paluxy sands. 



* * After the town of Goodland in Indian territory. 



