20 THE IRON ORE DISTRICT OF EAST TEXAS. 



to the cultivation of fruit. In fact, such lands are now among the greatest 

 fruit districts of Texas, and bid fair to be a worthy competitor of the Cali- 

 fornia fruit country. 



" Gent Mountain, in the western part of Cherokee County, is a beautiful 

 example of this plateau country. It comprises over twenty square miles of 

 area, is largely underlaid by iron ore, capped by a sandy soil, and thickly 

 covered with oak and hickory. From its summit, looking south and west, 

 can be seen the lowlands of the Neches River bottom, and beyond the roll- 

 ing country of Anderson County. To the north can be seen Gray's Moun- 

 tain, Grimes Mountain, Ragsdale Mountain, and many other iron clad hills. 

 To the east looms up a similar range, constituting the iron ore plateau of 

 Rusk and New Birmingham." 



The soils of these table lands are of a gray sandy character, and are under- 

 laid by clay subsoil, often stained red by iron. "The gray surface soil blends 

 into and is doubtless derived from the red subsoil, to which it owes its agri- 

 cultural value." 



The Lowlands. — Surrounding these highlands we find large areas from 

 which erosion has removed the beds of iron ore or sandstone and the great 

 bed of greensand that immediately underlies these, and has brought to view 

 the numerous and varied beds of clay and sands upon which they were 

 originally deposited. These form the lowlands, the gently rolling and undu- 

 lating portion of the region. The lowland soils are of three kinds: red 

 clayey, red sandy, or mulatto. "These soils are extensively represented in 

 East Texas, and form some of the richest lands of the region. They are not 

 sharply divided from each other, but gradually blend together. They are 

 underlaid by the clay and sandy strata of the Timber Belt beds, and owe 

 their color to the decomposition of glauconite and other iron bearing min- 

 erals. 



"The 'mulatto' soils are of a brownish red color, and are generally the re- 

 sult of the decomposition of the large glauconite beds of the region, and as 

 they contain the fertilizing ingredients of that mineral, they are very pro- 

 ductive. Next to the river bottom lands, they are the most productive soils 

 of East Texas, and are extensively developed in Anderson, Smith, Cherokee, 

 Rusk, Gregg, Harrison, and other counties." 



While there is no doubt that the entire region has been submerged more 

 than once since its first emergence, the evidence seems to prove that the prin- 

 cipal drainage channels established in Quaternary times, or possibly earlier, 

 continue to be the principal ones of to-day. 



In Texas the primary systems of this region are those of Red and Trinity 

 rivers. These have their source far west of this region, and their channels 

 cut deeper into the underlying beds than do those of the rivers of later 



