78 GEOLOGY AND MINERAL RESOURCES OF MISSISSIPPI. 
The town of Scooba is in the Flatwoods area, which is underlain by clays of the Midway 
group. The road from Scooba to De Kalb is through the Porters Creek area until Sucar- 
nochee Creek is reached, 2 miles east of De Kalb. The hills of the Wilcox formation begin 
just west of the creek and rise 250 feet above it, barometric reading. The material here 
forming the Flatwoods is a gray, plastic, nonfossiliferous clay ("popping clay"). It makes a 
cold soil, very sticky and plastic when wet, and when it dries out cracks open so that one 
can thrust his hand 6 or 8 inches into the opening. 
But little of the Flatwoods area is cleared and put in cultivation, and this only where there 
is a little remnant of Lafayette sand left. The Lafayette formation is practically wanting 
over the entire area of the Flatwoods. The timber is short-leaf pine, post oak, scrub hickory, 
black jack, and black gum, with an occasional white oak and holly. 
Two and one-half miles east of Scooba, on the west bank of the creek shown on the map 
(PI. I), is the first outcrop of Sclma chalk on the Scooba and Gainesville road. A sample of 
limestone taken from this outcrop was analyzed in the laboratory of the United States Geo- 
logical Survey, with the following result : 
Analysis ofSelma limestone from creek near Scooba. 
[By W. s. McNeil.] 
Silica (Si0 2 ) 16. 48 
Alumina (A1 2 3 ) 1 r 97 
Iron oxide (Fe 2 3 ) J 
Lime carbonate (CaC0 3 ) 74. 34 
Magnesium carbonate (MgC0 3 ) 67 
Water 67 
There is a change in the character of timber as soon as the Selma area is reached. Short- 
leaf pine, which occurs so abundantly in the Flatwoods, is wanting except in the old ''turned- 
out land." Black oak is the principal timber in the Selma chalk. Some post oak and 
hickory occur. The pine is wanting at a distance of 2 miles east of Scooba, which would per- 
haps bring the contact between the Selma and Porters Creek one-half mile west of the Selma 
outcrop. 
Two miles east of Scooba and one-half mile south is another outcrop of limestone, more 
sandy than that 2h miles cast of Scooba. This is perhaps of Ripley age. 
Between Portersville and Oakgrove, in southern Kemper County, on the west side of Pit- 
tiefaw Creek, the Wilcox hills begin and extend westward. On land belonging to M. L. 
Nailer a bed of lignite, reported to be 4 feet thick, has been opened. 
Sucarnochee ( 'reck marks the west edge of the Porters Creek group from 2\ miles due cast of 
De Kalb to about 3 miles north of Oakgrove. Here the Porters Creek a rea widens and its west 
edge swings in to within 2\ or 3 miles east of Oakgrove, then follows a southeasterly direction 
and crosses the Kemper and Lauderdale County line about 3^ miles west of the State line. 
On the west side of Quilby Creek, where it runs south along the State line, 7 miles east of 
Sucarnochee, the Selma chalk forms a small bluff. The prairie soil extends back for 2 miles 
farther west. On the east side of the creek, about 100 yards east of the Alabama line, the 
Selma forms a bluff a little higher than on the opposite bank in Mississippi. Here what is 
taken to be the top of the Selma chalk is found. The top of the bluff is capped by a coarse- 
grained sandstone, cemented by lime carbonate. In it are lime concretions the size of a 
closed hand. 
The upper beds of the Selma chalk also appear in the bluff on the east side of Quilby 
Creek, 7 miles east of Sucarnochee. 
An outcrop of Selma chalk shows on the Scooba and Fox Prairie road where it crosses 
Bodea ( reek, about '1 miles west of the Stat" line. Asample collected from this outcrop was 
analyzed in the laboratory of the United States . reological Survey, as follows: 
