148 THE IRON ORE DISTRICT OF EAST TEXAS. 



Lying amongst and apparently a member of the red and white stratified 

 sands and sandy clays, on the south side of the Lewis Watkins headright, on 

 the road from Marshall to Jefferson, there is a deposit of a highly aluminous 

 clay showing a thickness of six feet. To the touch this clay is soft, and ad- 

 heres strongly to the tongue. With care in selecting and cleaning, so as to 

 free it from iron as much as possible, this clay may be utilized for the manu- 

 facture of a good grade of fire clay goods. It will, however, require to be 

 mixed with some other material, such as sand or burned clay, to give it the 

 requisite powers of expansion and contraction to stand any prolonged or ex- 

 cessive heating. This clay also belongs to the list of pottery clays. 



The following is an analysis of this clay air dried : 



Silica 68 . 90 per cent. 



Alumina 21 . 83 per cent. 



Iron 1.57 per cent. 



Alkalies 2.00 per cent. 



Water 5 . 60 per cent. 



99 . 90 per cent. 

 Sand 25 . 23 per cent. 



The areal extent of this deposit is not known, but there is every proba- 

 bility that it extends over a wide area of this part of the county. The over- 

 lying material is about five feet where the exposure occurs, but will become 

 deeper towards the east. 



The gray clays lying beneath the gray sands throughout that part of the 

 county lying to the north of the Little Cypress may be utilized for fire clay 

 purposes. These clays are, by themselves, of too close a texture and too fine 

 grained to be used as a fire clay without the addition of some opening mate- 

 rial. Combined with the sands among which they lie these clays may be 

 utilized with little or no extraneous matter. By burning this clay and grind- 

 ing the burned clay and then mixing the product with the raw material a 

 good quality of brick can be made. 



These clays are very widely distributed and have probably a thickness of 

 two hundred feet. In places they may contain thin seams of lignite, but 

 these will be at a considerable depth. 



At M. B. Alexander's house, on the A Dean headright, a well boring 

 shows these clays with the associated sands to have a thickness of more than 

 thirty-one feet. At this place they lie under twenty feet of sand and lami- 

 nated ore. To the southward of this well, and on the same headright, these 

 clays appear close to the surface and in places have a clear thickness of clean 

 clay, free from sand, of seven feet. The same class of clays also occurs upon 

 the S. N. Hall headright at Mr. G W. Cook's house. At this place the clay 

 lies beneath eighteen inches of gray sand and has a known thickness of over 

 fifteen feet. 



