THE TIMBER BELT OR SABINE RIVER BEDS. 35 



are gray in color, compact, very hard, and often semi- crystalline. They are 

 buried in a light clay, frequently sandy and containing small seams of lignite. 

 They are often rusty on the outside, and weather in concentric layers. From 

 here in a westerly direction to Jefferson, a series of sands and clays is passed 

 over frequently containing ferruginous seams or glauconiferous strata and 

 lignite in small quantities. Going north from Jefferson similar sands and 

 clays are passed over, containing considerable quantities of clay ironstone 

 and brown hematite. The ore usually caps the hills and gives the same 

 characteristic topography as is seen in Cherokee County and elsewhere. The 

 clays and sands are frequently mottled red, yellow, and white, and are much 

 cross-bedded. Continuing into Cass County, similar deposits are seen along 

 the line of the Texas and Pacific Railroad, near Springdale, Atlanta, and 

 other places. At Alamo, in the northeast part of the county, a shaft has 

 been sunk for lignite and shows the following section : 



1. Sand and clay. / . . 26 feet. 



2. Gray clay 23 feet. 



3. Lignite, black and often glossy 1 foot 8 inches. 



4. Gray sand 2 feet. 



5. Hard slaty clay 9 feet. 



6. Lignite 4 feet 2 inches. 



Going west from Jefferson a series of sands and clays, mostly the former, 

 is passed over until we reach the Basal Clays, three miles east of Wills 

 Point. Such strata are seen at Hawkins, Neals, Wilkins, Gladwater, Long- 

 view, Marshall, and other places. These sands and clays belong to the Tim- 

 ber Belt Beds, and contain many seams of lignite, which crop out in the 

 bluffs of the Sabine River in Yan Zandt, Rains, Wood, Smith, and other 

 counties, as well as in many creeks and wells. In Van Zandt County are 

 seen numerous outcrops of gray sand intimately associated with an impalpable 

 white clay. When wet, it is soft and putty-like, but in a dry state it becomes 

 hardened, and stands up through the surrounding and more incoherent strata 

 like a reef of rock. Such a deposit is seen two miles southwest of Bolton, 

 on the Wills Point and Edgewood road, and probably represents the sand 

 beds seen at Rocky Rapids, on the Brazos. At Grand Saline, in Van Zandt 

 County, on the Texas Pacific Railroad, is a large deposit of salt. It has been 

 found in boring at a depth of two hundred feet, and the salt bed has been 

 bored into for a hundred and twenty-five feet without reaching the bottom 

 of it. The overlying strata are Tertiary clays and sands. Salt was gotten 

 over thirty years ago from brine which rose in shallow wells ten to twenty 

 feet deep in the surface of the Saline, but is now obtained by the evaporation 

 of the much stronger brine from the deep borings. The Saline is about one 

 mile long from east to west, and about a half mile wide from north to south. 



