HAVES AND 
KENNEDY. 
DETAILED SECTIONS. 49 
While some of these hills, and perhaps most of them, are due to the 
geologic structure, others are probably due in part at least to erosion. 
A peculiar topographic feature of the Gulf Coastal Plain in Texas 
and Louisiana, but especially well developed in this eastern division, 
is the "pimpled plain." Large areas a;*e covered with small mounds, 
generally circular in outline, from 20 to 60 feet in diameter and from 
2 to 10 feet in height. In some cases they are so close together as to 
be in contact, but they are generally separated by distances varying 
from a few rods to a quarter of a mile. Large areas of the plain are 
entirely free from the mounds, though not otherwise different in char- 
acter of soil or underlying formations from the pimpled plains. The 
mounds are composed of fine sand or sandy loam even where the 
surrounding plain has a clay soil. Numerous theories have been pro- 
posed to explain the origin of these mounds, but none of them are 
entirely satisfactory, and they need not be enumerated here. 
The presence of these mounds was considered, during the early pros- 
pecting of the Texas field, a favorable indication of the presence of 
oil, and much drilling was done on the strength of this indication. 
No rational theory for their origin, however, connects them in any 
way with deep-seated commercial deposits of oil or gas, and experi- 
ence has shown that they have no connection with such deposits. 
Their presence or absence should, therefore, be wholly ignored by the 
oil prospector. 
The northern boundary of the Fayette sands crosses the Trinity a 
short distance south of Hyde's ferry in Houston County, passing in a 
general northeast direction past Pennington, where it turns easterly 
and reaches the south side of the Neches River near Clark's ferry, 
where the Houston East and West Texas Railroad crosses that stream. 
Crossing the river near Rockland, in Tyler County, the line turns 
northeastward past Brookland, about 8 miles north of Jasper, and 
crosses the Sabine River near the mouth of Little Sandy Creek, in 
Sabine County. 
From the crossing of the Trinity near Riverside the southern bor- 
der follows a somewhat irregular line in a generally eastern direction, 
passing between Corrigan and Moscow, near Bowers, on the Missouri, 
Kansas and Texas Railroad; Summit, on the Texas and New Orleans 
Railroad; Jasper; Farrs, a few miles north of Burkesville; and crosses 
the Sabine about 3 miles north of Burr's ferry. 
The composition of the Fayette beds has generally been described 
as gray sands, sandstones, and gray clays. In this area the Fayette 
is made up of gray and white sandstones; gray and pinkish-gray 
sands; gray, pinkish-white, and white, with occasional beds of pale- 
green clay; one or more beds of white fossiliferous limestone, and 
brown or yellowish-brown sandy clays containing many impressions 
of leaves and stems of plants, among which leaves resembling the 
gum appear to be the prevailing form, Along the line of the Hous- 
Bull. 212—03 4 
