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In Union parish, on the road from Marion to Cherry Ridge, the 

 hills are principally composed of argillaceous iron stone, covered by 

 a thin layer of iron tinted sand, and here and there a shaly rock of 

 metamorphic origin, which gives it the appearance of petrified wood, 

 and the people of that part of the country pronounce it as such, 

 and imagine that the petrifaction took place within a very few years 

 at the spot where the rocks now lie. I was informed by an intelli- 

 gent and educated planter that his little son had found the lower end 

 of a pole around which fodder is stacked, perfectly petrified. He 

 had not seen it himself, nor had he any inclination to have the truth 

 of the statement verified. In another neighborhood I was told 

 that a block cut for making shingles, was found in the woods after 

 a few years, in a petrified state. If northwest Louisiana were a 

 limestone country, and the water of the springs and wells were 

 impregnated with carbonate of lime, these wonderful phenomena of 

 sudden petrifactions might be well founded. But in all this country 

 hardly a trace of lime is perceptible in the water, and the petrifac- 

 tions found are siliceous, no calcareous petrifactions occur here; 

 and it is not probable that silicification takes place except in a sea, 

 whose waters are of a high temperature, containing silica in a state 

 of solution, or in hot springs, like the geysers of Iceland, which are 

 impregnated with silicic acid. 



From Farmersville to Spearsville the road presents a constant 

 alternation of hills and hollows, where the argillaceous iron stone 

 covers the whole surface, sometimes disposed in ledges, sometimes 

 scattered in broken slabs washed by the water. These iron stone 

 layers rest for the most part on gravel beds, and the pebbles are fre- 

 quently intermixed with small fragments of water-washed iron-stones. 



The country around Minden consists of a series of gravelly sand 

 hills and the houses in the town are literally built upon the sand. 

 These immense sand mounds rest upon yellow and gray clays, of 

 which, in some localities, gullies of from twenty to thirty feet deep 

 are exposed. In the outskirts of Minden, on the sloping banks of 

 a shallow branch, are found thin layers of lignite from three to six 

 inches thick and not more than a few feet of horizontal extent. It 

 is imbedded in a grayish clay. About six miles from Homer lignite 

 of a better quality is found, which, though it does not possess the 

 metallic luster or the cleavage of coal, was supposed by some people 





