The Mississippi Survey. — Hilgard. 297 
I took the field ag-ain in April, with the same outfit, an am- 
bulance with two mules and a negro driver, and starting- at 
the Ripley cretaceous, I devoted the season to the verification 
ot a full section across the tertiary area, from north to south ; 
including also the detailed examination of the fossiliferous lo- 
calities of the "Jackson" and "Vicksburg" stages in their most 
characteristic development. Contrary to my first impressions, 
I found the Vicksburg beds everywhere along their southern 
limit of outcrops, dipping southward under the lignito-gyp- 
seous and sandstone strata of the "Grand Gulf" group, which 
rise abruptly and sometimes in steep escarpments from the 
low rolling or prairie country of the Vicksburg area ; and be- 
ing thus led to consider the Grand Gulf rocks as belonging to 
a miocene or possibly pleiocene epoch, I devoted considerable 
time to the study of its features and to the search for fossils. 
That this search was unavailing so far as the finding of defin- 
ite animal forms is concerned, and that a subsequent continu- 
ation of the search over the rest of its area in Mississippi and 
Louisiana has led to no better results, I have stated and dis- 
cussed in later publications.* 
The fundamental fact of the infra-position of the Vicks- 
burg beds to those of the Grand Gulf group that has been 
called in question by Otto Meyer, can easily be verified bv anv 
one understanding the logic of stratigraphicai and hypsometri- 
cal facts in numerous localities along the belt of contact. I 
mention especially the outcrops at Mississippi Springs on 
Pearl river below Byram ; on Richland creek, Rankin county ; 
on the Brandon and Byram road ; north of Raleigh, Smith 
county, and at numerous other points, both in Mississippi and 
Louisiana. No other interpretation of the stratigraphicai 
facts is possible in a region where disturbances ("apart from 
small local faults), are unknown, and where the broad facts 
are identical from the Chickasawhay to the Siibine. 
In passing through the state I became painfully conscious 
of the fact that the survey had become extremelv unpopular, 
as a consequence of Harper's incumbency and report : so much 
so that it was often very difficult to obtain information, or 
even civil answers to inquiries. I felt that it would be neces- 
V 
•See my Mississippi Report of 1860. p. 147. Am. Jour. Sci., 1887 : Ibid., 
Nov., 1869; Ibid.. Dec, 1871: Ibid., July, 1881; also Smith. Contr. Sci 
Memoir, yo. 248. 
