Distribution of Rivers. 65 



An observant traveller in North America, Featherston^- 

 haugh,* when tracing the country along the banks uf the 

 Arkansas river, came to a deep and lonely gorge where the 

 main stream of that river had once flowed. In the alluvium 

 there he remarked alternate layers of a red ferruginous 

 clay, and of a whitish sand, frequently repeated. His pre- 

 vious experience of the tributaries of this river enabled him 

 thus to account satisfactorily for this appearance. He says, 

 " What exceedingly interested me here were the curious 

 party-coloured deposits of clay and sand which had been left 

 by the various inundations of the river that had taken place 

 since this channel was abandoned. These inundations could 

 almost be enumerated by the thin strata they had produced. 

 There was a layer of red clay, then one of white sand, then 

 again a mixture of both, and occasionally large blotches or 

 masses of whitish clay, enclosed in a regular deposit of red ar- 

 gillaceous earth. The last deposit consisted of about an inch 

 of dull red argillaceous matter, most probably brought from 

 the country where the river Canadian flows. Appearances of 

 this kind are often met with in indurated rocks, where they 

 can only be accounted for conjecturally. This alluvial depo- 

 sit is, however, undoubtedly owing to the extraordinary cha- 

 racter of the river Arkansas, a mighty flood, which, deriving 

 its most remote sources from the melted snows of peaks of 

 the Rocky Mountains, from 10,000 to 15,000 feet high, and 

 holding its course among the mountain chains for at least 

 200 miles, pursues its way nearly 2000 miles before it joins 

 the Mississippi. But the sources of this stream are nume- 

 rous, and some of them are six or seven hundred miles apart 

 from west to east. The southernmost sources flow through an 

 ancient deposit of red argillaceous matter for several hundred 

 miles, which gives the red muddy character to the Canadian 

 and its branches. The western and northern sources bring 

 down mineral matter of various kinds and colours ; but, to 

 the. east, some of the branches take their rise in the petro- 

 silicious country through which I had lately passed, and the 

 white arenaceous deposits are sufficiently indicative of their 

 eastern origin. The branches thus referred to being of un- 



* Excursions through the Slave States of America. 

 VOL. LV. NO. CIX.— JULY 1858. 



