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The pine flats terminate near Burdick's creek, about fifty-five 

 miles from Lake Charles, and sixty-five miles from Alexandria, and 

 there the pine hills commence. The character of the vegetation 

 changes but little, except that the cuidosculus stimulosus and the 

 hymenapappus scabiosaeus are most flourishing in this region of 

 country. Here is the terminal line of the bluff formation, and the 

 orange sand hills begin. 



The orange sand formation is peculiar to the Southern States, and 

 it was probably formed during the same geological period as the ' 

 northern drift. It is now generally admitted that the northern drift 

 is due to the sliding action of glaciers descending from lofty mount- 

 ains and transporting to the valleys the detretus of rocks, and large, 

 enormous boulders embedded in the ice. The orange sand, on* the 

 other hand, is diluvial, and seems to be the result of mountain tor- 

 rents, which on the breaking up of the winter ice, swelled their 

 volume to an enormous extent, and the water, in the rapidity 01 

 their currents, swept along the sand and pebbles, while the larger 

 rocks and small boulders formed the ballast of ice masses broken 

 loose from the mountain range. There is really no true drift forma- 

 tion in the Southern States, except that the age of the diluvial orange 

 sand corresponds to the northern drift period. 



The orange sand deposit of North Calcasieu and South Rapides 

 is principally composed of bright red clay, graduating into light 

 yellow and white, and alternating with extensive stretches of sand 

 hills, the sand being of all colors, from deep orange to pure white, 

 intermixed with small water-washed pebbles of opaque quartz, 

 jasper and horn stone. Neither fossiliferous pebbles nor boulders 

 of any kind are to be seen in these pine hills. The iron stone, so 

 abundant in North Louisiana, is entirely wanting. 



In an agricultural point of view, the long-leafed pine which grows 

 here to a gigantic height, if made subservient for the production of 

 turpentine, would furnish the most valuable commercial staple of 

 this part of Louisiana. The country is however too thinly settled 

 for this purpose, and small farming communities are found only on 

 the bottom lands all along the water courses, which will yield good 

 crops, sufficiently remunerative to those who labor with their own 

 hands, and are not dependent on the hired labor of the freedman. 

 The hill lands are poor, and as they are washed out into deep gullies 



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