ABSTRACTS. 
89 
A brief discussion of the flora of plateau brings to light some very in- 
teresting facts, one of which concerns the distribution of the cypress: 
“This tree, which ordinarily grows only in the swamps and bayous of 
the low sub-coastal regions, attains an enormous size at the edge of 
the deeper holes near the heads of permanent water of the Pedernales, 
Blanco, San Marcos, Guadalupe, Cypress, Onion Creek, and other 
streams. These localities are at altitudes from 1000 to 1750 feet above 
the sea and hundreds of miles west of the great cypress swamps of the 
eastern tier of Texan counties, with which they have no possible con- 
nection/” 
Under the caption “Capacity of Bocks for Absorbing Moisture,” the 
following succinct statement is given concerning the water-bearing strata 
in Texas: “The artesian water-bearing strata of the State east of the 
Pecos River are composed mostly of extensive sheets’ of sands, clays, and 
limestones, succeeding one another in orderly arrangement, except along 
the Balcones zone of faulting, and in general having a gentle inclination 
towards the sea, so that in traveling northwestward, although constantly 
ascending in altitude, one encounters the outcropping edges of rock 
sheets of lower and lower stratigraphic position. This produces the 
simple arrangement of a tilted plain built up of a series of alternately 
impervious and pervious layers. The rain falling upon the outcropping 
edges of the latter, sinks into the embed, and by gravity is conducted 
seaward down the plane of its inclination to lower levels beneath the 
surface. Each different stratum, including any particular water-bearing 
stratum, becomes embedded deeper and deeper to the southeastward of 
the point where it outcrops at the surface.” 
The rocks appearing in the region under discussion are tabulated by 
the authors as follows: 
Recent. 
Wash deposits of the hillsides, stream-bed material, etc. 
Pleistocene. 
Onion Creek marl, Leona formation, and other terrace deposits. 
Pliocene. 
Uvalde formation. 
Eocene. 
Cretaceous. 
