10 



which is navigable only for very light draught steamboats, and at 

 the slow rate of traveling of three miles an hour. 



The orauge sand soil may also be divided into two kinds of soil. The 

 red sandy loam soil, and the fossiliferous gravel soil. The red sandy 

 loam soil forms a ridge along the banks of the Teche, which was 

 never ovei flowed, either by the waters of the Gulf, or the waters of 

 the Mississippi and its tributaries. This red sandy loam ridge crops 

 out near Port Barre, where the Teche divides off from the Courtableau, 

 ■and extends, in St. Landry, to the towns of Washington and Opelou- 

 sas, beyond which it ceases to be visible on the surface, being cov- 

 ered by the prairie soil. It also forms the foundation of the 

 Atchafalaya river bed, and the lower strata of its banks upon which 

 the alluvion is deposited. Geologically considered this soil might 

 perhaps be classed with a lower series of the Port Hudson forma- 

 tion, but with reference to its properties as soil, it is essentially an 

 orange sand loam, mixed with limestone ingredients, and possesses 

 sufficient fertility to render its cultivation remunerative to the plan- 

 ter and farmer. I am the more inclined to class it with the upper 

 series of the orange sand period, judging from the botanical indica- 

 tions furnished by the prevalent summer weed, which is invariably 

 the bitter- weed (Helenium tenuifolium) where the sandy loam, or 

 the fossiliferous gravel soil prevails. 



Near Opelousas it almost traces the line where the red sandy loam 

 terminates and the prairie soil begins. In Rapides, on the banks of 

 the Teche, in St. Landry near Washington, and again beyond Ville 

 Platte and Chicotville, from whence it extends to the fossiliferous 

 gravel soil; in St. Tammany, in Tangipahoa, in East Feliciana, every 

 where the yellow flowers of the bitter- weed cover the surface of the 

 soil, and in some localities, are crowding out every other vegetation; 

 while the Port Hudson and the alluvial soils produce invariably the 

 four-toothed Helenium (Helenium quadridentatum,) another species 

 of the same genus, which grows there with the same rank luxuriance. 



The same >^andy loam, only of a deeper and almost crimsonred, crops 

 out near Clinton in East Feliciana, where the Port Hudson soil dis- 

 a ppears, and pine and black jack form the characteristic growth. 

 There it covers the second subdivision of the orange sand soil, com- 

 posed of a whitish or grayish clay and fossil gravel beds. 



The fossiliferous gravel soil is almost devoid of those properties 

 which render the cultivation of the Southern staples profitable. I* 



