OF ARKANSAS. B91 
garded as a favorable symptom and indicative of its origin from beneath. 
In this formation, in the vicinity of Lafferty creek, rich beds of manga- 
nese ore have been found at several places.* The most remarkable 
occurrence of this ore, within my range of observation, is on the property 
of Mr..Martin Cason’s in section 84, township 14 north, range 6 west, three 
miles north of Batesville. Here it does not occur in veins, but in regularly 
stratified beds, splitting up into rusty slabs two or three inches thick, and 
containing imbedded sub-spheroidal concretions of a harder and more 
metallic appearance than the matrix ore; in size they vary from a half to 
one inch in diameter. This segregated ore is not inappropriately called, 
“ Button ore.”t It is well exposed at Mr. Cason’s, on the slope of a hill 
in his field, where, in fact, he actually turns it up in great sheets while 
cultivating his land with the plow. After it has been exposed to the 
atmosphere for a short time, decomposition takes place, producing a black 
soil more fertile than any other portion of his farm. Shafts have beea 
sunk into the ore at this place, fifteen feet in depth, without reaching the 
bottom. The ore-bed is overlaid by a coarse-grained entrochital limestone, 
which has four feet of its base colored red and filled with the aforemen- 
tioned butten-shaped concretions of manganesc ore. 
The position and appearance of the ore, at this locality, render it highly 
probable that beds of limestone, previously existing, have been replaced 
by infiltrated oxide of manganese. 
The saccharoidal sandstone (c) was best seen in the eastern and north- 
ern part of the county on Bayou Doty and Bayou Cury, where it has a 
thickness of fifty or seventy-five feet. It is a coarse-grained, slightly 
cemented rock, possessing a variety of shades of color, from pure white 
to deepred. This variegated sandstone underlies the subcarboniferous 
limestones (d.) and rests on magnesian limestones of lower silurian date, 
but being destitute of fossils we are, at present, not prepared to say posi- 
tively to what geological period it belongs. 
The earthy looking limestone (b.) is found associated with and over the 
lead bearing magnesian limestone of the lower silurian period, and is 
usually known in the vicinity where it occurs, by the name of “ white 
rock,” or “cotton rock.” This is a very constant member in the slopes 
of the hills, in the northern counties, where lead ores have been dis- 
covered. 
The massive magnesian limestone («.) is a continuation downwards of 
* See Report of Dr. D. D. Owen, State Geologist. 
+ The specimens collected at this locality, and shipped, have not yet arrived. The economical 
value cannot therefore be reported on. 
