THE NASHVILLE TENNESSEAN 
ORIGIN OF GULF 
STATES IS TOLD 
Structure of Area in Prehis- 
toric Days Reviewed 
The Gulf States -were told Tues- 
day just what they are and how 
they came to be. 
The structure of each state was 
described in detail at a symposium 
participated in by geologists and 
geographers attending the conven- 
tion of the American Association 
for the Advancement of Science and 
the whole process was summarized 
by Prof Charles Schuchert of Yale. 
“For tens of millions of years," 
he related, "all of the gulf states, 
with the exception of Florida, were 
more or less of a highland, border- 
ed on the south by an inland sea, 
whose depth was measured in hun- 
dreds of feet, rather than by the 
deep gulf of today, which in places 
goes down below 12,000 feet. 
“During this time the drainage 
of much of the interior of North 
America flowed southwestward 
probably into the Gulf of Califor- 
nia. Then the land from eastern 
Texas and Oklahoma eastward 
across the Gulf states into the 
Atlantic began to sink, possibly 
most markedly along what is now 
the Mississippi valley, but finally 
throughout the area from South 
Carolina to central Texas and in a 
trough narrowing northward across 
Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky 
Into .southern 
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