10 OIL FIELDS OF TEXAS-LOUISIANA COASTAL PLAIN, [bull 212 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. 
Acknowledgments are due to the various oil companies and their 
managers, as well as to individual drillers in the various portions of 
the Coastal Plain, for assistance in various ways and for information 
given by them during the course of the work. Thanks are due more 
particularly to W. E. Griffith and J. M. Landon, of the J. M. Guffey 
Petroleum Company; to Walter and J. M. Sharp, of Sharp Brothers; 
to George A. Hill, of the safety committee; to W. II. Mitchell, of the 
Gladys Oil Company; to J. Harbey, of the Harbey Oil Company; and 
to W. A. Andrews, of the Slaughter-Masterson Company. Also to 
H. H. Jones, of Hackberry, and Lee I lager, mining engineer, for 
information regarding the Louisiana field; to H. S. Hargraves, of 
Saratoga, and Messrs. Heaton and T. O'Connor, of Victoria and Ouero, 
for assistance in Victoria, Dewitt, and Calhoun counties. Without 
the assistance of these men, much of the informal ion here given 
would not have been obtainable. 
PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE OF THE REGION. 
From the Mississippi River westward through Louisiana and Texas, 
along the boi-dcr of the Gulf of Mexico, is a low, flat country, partly 
swampy or marshy, as in the southern parishes of Louisiana, and 
partly a broad stretch of clayey and sandy land hut slightly elevated 
above the level of these marshes. The marshy areas extend west- 
ward to the eastern shore of Galveston Bay, while the clayey areas 
may be said to extend as far west as the Guadalupe River, in Victoria 
County, Tex. West of that stream, as far as the Rio Grande, the 
country is covered with sand and has a semiarid aspect. It ma} 7 be 
added that this condition exists for many miles along the coast of the 
Mexican State of Tamaulipas. This region is known as the Gulf 
Coastal Plain. It extends inland for a distance of from 50 to 100 
miles. Although forests of pine, oak, and magnolia fringe its north- 
ern border on the higher grounds, various species of gum occur on 
the lower benches, and heavy forests of black and red cypress occupy 
the low river flood plains, the greater portion of the Coastal Plain is 
a treeless prairie. 
These prairies have usually been designated the Coast prairies, and 
the beds which occupy the surface within the area are grouped under 
the general title of Coast clays. No geologic work of any magnitude 
has ever been done in this prairie region, partl} T because the country 
was not considered of any economic value, and partly on account of 
the difficulties caused by the absence of anything like a natural sec- 
tion. The country is very flat, there are few streams flowing across 
it, and these few are flowing through broad, shallow channels filled 
with recent alluvium. 
The only references made to these coast deposits in the published 
