CHARACTER, ORIGIN, OCCURRENCE, AND USES. 
and Kansas City, Mo., and other cities where loess soils are used in 
brick manufacture, grinding mills are employed to reduce them to 
the finest powder. In this condition they are fed at once to great 
dry-pressing machines, from which they are immediately set in kilns. 
When it is treated thus, or in a similar manner, no material is better 
suited to brick manufacture. The processes employed in brick manu- 
facture must be varied with the variation in the nature of the brick 
earth used. 
SLOPE SOILS. 
At all points along the ridge country, except Helena, the reworked 
loess is commonly employed in brick manufacture. It occurs on the 
sides and at the foot of the ridge. The soil is stripped a few inches, 
to remove the mass of vegetable matter, and the subsoil, to a depth 
varying from 1 to 5 feet, is used for brickmaking. The clay is thrown 
into pits, with water, and allowed to stand for two or three days or 
a week, when it is pugged. It is then molded and dried in the usual 
manner. 
The soils and clays of the slopes present the greatest range of varia- 
tion in character. They differ greatly within short distances, at 
places becoming very clayey, at others sandy, or even gravelly. The 
variation in microscopic appearance is due to the relative erosion, 
both of amount and rate, to which the various strata have been sub- 
jected. In many places, as at Harrisburg, in Poinsett County, and 
at Wynne, in Cross County, the loess soils have been largely removed 
by erosion, so that the underlying Tertiary sands have been exposed 
and the soils of the slope have become more sandy than soils of the 
same class about Forrest City, Marianna, La Grange, and Helena. 
The characters exhibited appear to differ locally, also. Where the 
slope is rather steep the clays and intermingled sands alike are eroded 
away, having been carried down to the lower lands and redeposited 
over the flat country as a thin surface soil or sandy loam, but in 
situations where the slope is less marked the clays alone are carried 
off, while the sands and gravels are left behind. This appears to be 
the explanation of the character of the soils along all that portion 
of the ridge country or slope north of Jonesboro, on the eastern side 
of the ridge. There the slope of the ridge is gentle and the conditions 
are favorable for the removal of the clay. But on the west slope of 
the ridge from Craighead County northward to the Missouri line the 
slope of the ridge is abrupt, and the erosive agents carry off all that 
is movable, whether it be sand, gravel, or clay. These arc again 
mixed with much organic matter on the plains below and immedi- 
ately adjoining the ridge, which modify the soil. 
From these slope soils are manufactured most or all of the bricks 
produced at Paragould, Gainesville, and Jonesboro. Commonly only 
