SHELBY COUNTY. 247 



maining 419,652 be deducted 41,965 acres for timber already cut and in 

 process of cutting by the sixteen saw mills, then 377,68V acres would approx- 

 imately represent the present area of standing timber. 



The total amount of timber would be approximately represented by the 

 following figures: One-fourth, or 94,422 acres, suitable for lumber, at an 

 average of 2500 feet per acre, would be 236,055,000 feet. The remaining, 

 283,265 acres, if cut into cord wood for charcoal, at an average of 37-J cords 

 per acre, would make a total of 10,622,437 cords. 



The most abundant timber trees in this county are the pines, Pinus mitis 

 and Pinus taeda. Both are varieties of the short-leaf or old field pine. 



The other trees include the different oaks, sassafras, locust, hickory, elm, 

 gum, black walnut, willow, cypress, and in the northern part of the county, 

 on McFadden Creek, the Magnolia grandiflora. 



IRON ORES. 



The country between Carthage, in Panola County, and Teneha, in Shelby 

 County, is for the most part gently rolling. The summits of the ridges, of 

 moderate elevation, show remnants of the iron ore bed, either as fragments 

 of iron sandstone or as deep red clay, underlaid by the mottled red and gray 

 clay, with scattered shells or crusts and yellow clay stone centres of former 

 iron geodes. 



The country between Teneha and Logansport, Louisiana, as seen along the 

 line of the Houston East and West Texas Railway, exhibits similar condi- 

 tions. The general dip is apparently about five to eight degrees east by 

 south. 



The remnant of the iron ore deposit is seen on top of the hills and ridges 

 extending from the extreme northwestern to the central southern boundary, 

 or crossing from Panola County in the northwest and into San Augustine 

 and Sabine counties southeastward. 



In the road at Timpson, at Center, and elsewhere a quantity of siliceous 

 iron pebbles were observed in the sandy soil. These pebbles are probably 

 derived from the disintegration of the iron conglomerate, and are associated 

 with iron gravel in angular pieces, resulting from the breaking up of the 

 former bed of aluminous buff crumbly iron ore, and the concentric shells of 

 iron geodes. Some of this material was magnetic and easily separated from 

 the non-magnetic portion by a common horse shoe magnet. 



On a trip to the south of Timpson, crossing Bear Bayou about seven miles 

 from Timpson, on a ridge one mile south of the Whiteside residence, was seen 

 a remnant of the iron ore bed consisting of a bench of about twenty-five acres, 

 on the top of which is a bed of iron sandstone which had been nearly four feet 

 thick, as ascertained from a bowlder which had fallen from the bench. The 



