OF ARKANSAS. 299 



good workable beds of coal is not encouraging in Arkansas. Xear the 

 western limits of the coal-basin, the Millstone Grit and the underlying 

 strata take apparently a great development, and thus coal may be found 

 there, at least one bed of it, as thick as in the higher series of the forma- 

 tion. Moreover, the extraordinary horizontality of the geological measures 

 in Western Arkansas, causes an extensive distribution of the strata con- 

 taining the coal, either near the surface or at a depth where the com- 

 bustible material may be easily reached. Coal has already been found 

 and surveyed in twelve counties, and just in those that are farthest from 

 the great coal-basin which extends east of the Mississippi. The com- 

 bustible mineral, thus rendered more valuable, becomes still more so from 

 the situation of the coal-basin along the Arkansas river, and on both sides 

 of it. Washington, Crawford, Sebastian, Franklin, Scott, Johnson, Yell, 

 Pope, Perry, Conway, White, and Pulaski Counties are all of them almost 

 entirely situated in the coal-basin of Arkansas, and its productive strata 

 may yet be extended into some of the adjacent counties. 



WASHINGTON COUNTY COAL, AT FAYETTEVILLE. 



My examination of this place was directed first to a thick bed of black 

 shales, exposed about twelve feet thick, below Cato's springs. These 

 shales were supposed to belong to the true coal-measures, and to contain 

 a bed of coal, which might be found by boring at some depth. They are 

 of a coarse texture, somewhat micaceous, and do not show any trace of 

 fossil plants. Their horizontal surface is only marked by ripples, evi- 

 dently caused by the movement of the water at the time of their forma- 

 tion, and by long, irregular, depressed, and transversely wrinkled lines, 

 half an inch broad, which are prints left by the progress of worms, or, 

 rather, of small crustacean. These peculiar marks are found in great 

 abundance in the upper beds of the Old Red Sandstone of Pennsylvania. 

 Thus, by analogy of the palaeontological remains, these shales are referred 

 to the Subcarboniferous strata of the West, which, in part, take the place 

 of the Old Red Sandstone of the East. 



On the western side of the town of Fayetteville, and at a higher geolo- 

 gical level than the black shales of Cato's springs, there are two outcrops 

 of coal, which indicate, by their dirt, thin and scarcely valuable beds. 

 ISTone of these coal-beds have been opened. The lowest, just under a 

 stratum of limestone, and said to be one foot thick, could not be examined. 

 The other immediately overlying the same limestone, from which it is 

 separated by a bed of fireclay, is supposed to be of the same thickness 

 although its outcrop does not show more than one or two inches of coal. 

 It is overlaid by a thick stratum of soft, grayish, or yellow shales ("soap- 



