To Dr. D. Dale Owen, 



Director of the State Geological Survey of Arkansas. 



Dear Sir : In presenting to you my Report on the Geological State 

 Survey of Arkansas, allow me briefly to review the instructions which I 

 received from you, concerning the researches I had to pursue, as the 

 Botanist and Botanical Palaeontologist of the Survey. 



In Fossil Botany, I was directed, 1st, to examine the plants of the coal 

 and associated strata, with a view to finding, if possible, evidence of the 

 age, number, and distribution of the coal-beds of Arkansas. 



2d. To examine, for the same purpose, the fossil remains of plants 

 accompanying the lignite formation, and to determine the age of these 

 strata, either quaternary, tertiary, or cretaceous. 



3d. To make a comparison between the Fossil Flora of the true Coal- 

 Measures of the Millstone Grit or Subconglomeratic Coals, and of the more 

 recent lignites. 



Concerning recent Botany, the directions were : 



1st. To examine the general distribution of the natural families of living 

 plants of Arkansas, and mark the species peculiar to certain localities, espe- 

 cially and carefully studying and enumerating the plants inhabiting the 

 Mammoth Spring of Fulton County, and those found around and within 

 the Hot Springs. 



2d. To investigate the geological distribution of the plants, or to mark 

 the plants which characterize certain geological horizons. 



3d. To examine the agricultural peculiarities of each botanical zone, and 

 to give a popular description of the most useful species of plants in agri- 

 culture, medicine, &c. 



4th. To make a list or catalogue of the plants of Arkansas, as far as time 

 and opportunity might permit. 



During the short time allowed me for exploration, I have endeavored to 

 follow these instructions to the best of my ability. In company with Prof. 

 E. T. Cox, a friend to whom I am already under many obligations for kind 

 and valuable assistance, I entered Arkansas, with Camp ISTo. 2, near the 

 Mammoth Spring of Fulton County, on the 15th of October. The lateness 

 of the season, and the consequent hurry of our explorations, did not permit 

 me as long and favorable a study of the living botany of Arkansas as I 

 should have liked. This has unavoidably caused some deficiency in that 

 part of my report treating of the distribution of living plants in Arkansas. 

 But I have endeavored to complete in a manner the catalogue of plants, 

 by enumerating, along with the species observed by members of the Survey 

 and by myself, those which I have found mentioned by former botanical 

 explorers in Arkansas. 



Very respectfully yours, 



LEO LESQUEEEUX. 



