68 THE IRON ORE DISTRICT OF EAST TEXAS. 



usually occupied by narrow streams, fed by the numerous springs found 

 everywhere along the sides of the ridges. 



Wherever ore occurs upon the top of a ridge broken masses and fragments 

 are found profusely scattered along the sides, giving to the casual observer 

 the impression that the whole of the ridge, or at least the greater part of it, 

 is composed of ore. It is only when the observer gets down into the stream 

 at the bottom of the ridge that the covering of ore is seen to be superficial. 

 In the perpendicular, lately formed walls enclosing the stream the beds of 

 sand forming the main portion of the ridge are seen. Where trees growing 

 upon the sides of the ridges have been blown over and uprooted, the actual 

 thickness of the ore covering is also disclosed. 



In some of the ridges thin seams of a laminated ore occur at depths vary- 

 ing from twenty to forty feet, or even more, from the top of the ridge. 

 Where those seams occur the hills invariably present a terraced appearance. , 

 This appears to be due to the protecting influence of the ore bed exerted in 

 favor of the underlying sands. The upper sandy division is generally com- 

 posed of a light colored, loose, unstratified sand, which erodes more rapidly 

 than l,he lower division of stratified clayey sands, even where not protected by 

 a lower bed of laminated ore. 



This terraced condition, however, does not appear to be altogether the re- 

 sult of an underlying seam of ore. It appears in many places in which the 

 lower bed of ore is absent, and it has been noticed in places where even the 

 surface or upper bed is also wanting. The structure of the hill has some- 

 thing to do with the formation of these terraces. In the places where they 

 occur with only the single upper bed of ore the side of the hill often presents 

 the appearance of having a second bed outcropping at the terrace. The 

 broken condition of the surface bed of ore presents but little protection to 

 the immediately underlying loose and incoherent sand, and this sand being 

 easier eroded than the underlying stratified beds, in a short time wears off 

 and leaves the stratified material in the form of a terrace. The ore being 

 thus deprived of its support falls down upon the terrace, and thus forms a belt 

 of ore along the hillside which might be readily looked upon as an outcrop- 

 ping of a second ore deposit. 



Some of these terraces may be attributed to land slides, due to the under- 

 mining of the upper beds by the washing away of, the lower division of strati- 

 fied sands, or to an underground drainage attacking the cinnamon-brown 

 and white sands which appear occasionally as underlying the stratified red 

 and white and mottled unstratified sands. These occurrences may have taken 

 place, but they are certainly very rare, and do not appear to be a very promi- 

 nent factor in the production of the numerous terraces skirting the ridges 

 throughout the portion of Cass County under consideration. 



