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intact, form a prominent feature of its surroundings, and if sodded 

 would afford delightful walks around the place — which is susceptible 

 of considerable improvement — especially after heavy rains, when the 

 streets are muddy, and the sticky clay retards the progress of the 

 weary traveler who lands on these steep and hilly banks, and has to 

 climb up an almost perpendicular declivity. As the Mississippi was 

 very low, the composition of its banks was exposed to the view 

 almost to its very bed. The lowest formation, upon which the Mis- 

 sissippi waters rest, is a compact, adhesive, blackish clay, having a 

 tinge of blue ; above this are layers of grayish and yellowish clay, 

 rising to a considerable height. The Port Hudson soil, composed of 

 a fine silt, is deposited above high water on these layers of yellowish 

 loam. It is of a brownish color, friable to the touch, and yields fine 

 corn and cotton, equal to the Mississippi alluvion. It extends about 

 eleven miles on the Port Hudson and Clinton Railroad, where the 

 pine first makes its appearance. The country between the Comite 

 and Amite rivers presents, in East Feliciana, nearly the same agri- 

 cultural and botanical features as it does between the same rivers in 

 East Baton Rouge. While on the Port Hudson soil the Four-toothed 

 Helenium is the prevailing weed, the Bitter-weed flourishes in great 

 abundance in both parishes, in that part which is bounded by the 

 two rivers, and which embraces an area of about twenty-two miles in 

 length. The long-leafed pine is but rarely seen here, but scrub and 

 pitch pine are everywhere intermingled with oak, beech, sweet gum 

 and magnolia. In the immediate vicinity of Clinton, the Youpon 

 (Ilex cassine) grows by the roadside, and is found here in clumps of 

 impenetrable thickets. 



With the exception of the bottom lands near Pretty Creek and 

 the Comite, the highlands belong to the Orange sand formation, 

 which is manifest from the characteristic encrinitic pebbles I picked 

 up. In many localities the soil is composed of pure sand, which 

 here has the real orange tint from which the formation derives its- 

 name. This sand is not entirely destitute of lime, for some of the 

 fossil pebbles are not perfectly silicified, and still retain a portion of 

 their carbonate of lime, which is friable and easily intermixes with the 

 soil. The subsoil is composed of clay of the deepest ocherous red, 

 which in some of the railroad cuts make up layers from ten to 

 fifteen feet high, and which are so compact, that during the war, 

 many a soldier cut his name in the clay to perpetuate his memory, 



