166 FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY—I5TH ANNUAL REPORT 
and Wauchula. This material is desirable for sand-clay road metal. 
No clays suited for burned products are known in the county. 
HERNANDO COUNTY 
Hernando County is situated on the ’Gulf coast in west-central 
Florida and is underlain by the Ocala and Tampa formations. The 
Tampa formation occupies the southeastern part of the county and sev¬ 
eral outliers scattered northward throughout the region of the Ocala 
formation. Brooksville, the county seat, is located in the center of one 
of these outliers, having a radius of about six miles. 
Residual clays are of common occurrence in both the Ocala and 
Tampa limestones, but sedimentary clays occur only in the Tampa 
formation. 
The Ocala residual clays are usually sandy, contain numerous flint 
concretions and the deposits are very irregular in thickness and extent. 
Pockets of such clay are frequently encountered in mining the hard- 
rock phosphate which occurs extensively in this region. These clay 
pockets are of insufficient size to warrant the separation of the clay from 
the other materials. 
The Tampa formation clays are worked at Brooksville and are 
found at numerous other localities in that vicinity. Few of them are de¬ 
sirable for burned products as their working qualities are rather poor. 
They are subject to excessive cracking during drying and burning which 
would result in severe losses during- the process of manufacture. The 
transverse strength is relatively low in all of them. 
The Morris and Blumer Brick Company, located about one mile 
south of Brooksville, works one of these Tampa formation residual 
clays. The deposit consists of two parts, an upper two feet, which is 
dark-brown in color and somewhat sandy, and a lower member, which 
is very light in color and averages about eight feet in thickness. The 
deposit is underlain by the Tampa limestone and is separated from it by 
an irregular contact. Flint and limestone concretions occur in the clay. 
The contact between the two members of this deposit is fairly distinct 
and probably represents a former water table. This deposit under¬ 
lies an extensive area south and west of Brooksville. 
At this plant the dark upper clay and the lower white one are mixed 
in equal proportions. The sand in the upper clay somewhat reduces the 
shrinkage of the mixture. These clays can be dried only with difficulty. 
