THE FAYETTE BEDS. 55 



3. Gray sand 1 foot. 



4. Lignite -£ foot. 



5. Interbedded gray sand, and chocolate and greenish clay, turned white in 



places on the surface 20 feet. 



The whole bluff is coated with sulphur as at the " Chalk Bluffs" on the Col- 

 orado River. It is one mile long, 40 feet high, dips 3 degrees south, and 

 presents a white and bleached appearance. Silicified wood is found in many 

 places, and is similar to that already described on the Colorado. From here 

 to a point eight miles above the mouth of Yegua Creek are seen small out- 

 crops of the same sands and clays. At this point is seen a bluff showing the 

 following section: 



1. Cross-bedded gray sand, hardened in places 10 feet. 



2. Hard greenish clay, with seams of chocolate clay 12 feet. 



3. Lignite 1 foot. 



4. Hard greenish clay 6 feet. 



5. Lignite . t 2 feet. 



6. Calcareous gray sand, with indurations 6 feet. 



Dip of the strata 1 to 5 degrees south. Many imperfect leaf impressions 

 and considerable iron pyrites are found in the clay. Three miles above Yegua 

 Creek is seen a bluff of similar clays and sands, and a quarter of a mile below 

 that creek, in Washington County, are seen ten feet of light green clay capped 

 by one-half to one foot of hard gray cross-bedded sandstone. The sandstone 

 lies unconf ormably on the clay, and contains lumps of the latter, proving that 

 the increase in speed of the waters, that caused the character of the deposit to 

 change from a clay to a sand, had also eroded part of the clay and deposited 

 lumps of it in the sand. A mile and a half below this is a low bluff showing 

 similar sands, composed of coarse transparent white, red, and black grains, 

 with pebbles of the same composition, and one-eighth to one inch in diameter. 

 There are also found in it worn pieces of silicified wood one to six inches long, 

 with similar fragments of vitreous wood opal; lumps, singly and in lenticular 

 patches, of light green clay, one quarter to two inches in diameter; rusty 

 crystals of iron pyrites; worn pieces of bone, one-half to two inches long; 

 small shark teeth, worn and broken; and small white calcareous nodules. 

 The sand is cross-bedded, and in places hardened into a friable sandstone. 

 The organic remains in this bed have doubtless been eroded out of the Terti- 

 ary strata and laid down here during the deposition of the sands, as they 

 have evidently been much worn and rolled, and the shark teeth strongly re- 

 semble Tertiary forms. A mile and a half below this is a hill rising 100 feet 

 above the river bottom, and closely resembling the La Grange bluff. It 

 shows the same friable sandstones, coarse and fine sand, loose yellow sandy 

 clay, with white calcareous nodules, iron pyrites, etc. From here down to 

 the town of Washington, and thence on to where the Houston and Texas 



