( ,)4 THE CLAYS OF ARKANSAS. 
where it curves abruptly northward, passes to the east and north of 
the village of Holland, and, bending upon itself, passes westward by 
Linden post-office. 
This syncline is topographically highest at its western end, where 
the hills stand about 150 feet above the valley, and it sinks gradually 
to the east. The shales forming the body of this elevated syncline are 
well above water level, and as they are nearly flat there would be no 
difficulty in mining them. Their distance from the railway, however, 
will doubtless prevent their being utilized for the present. 
Horseshoe Mountain, near Greenbriar, stands on the axis of the 
Greenbriar syncline. This mountain, like the other synclinal ridges, is 
composed mainly of argillaceous shale and, like them, is capped with a 
protecting beS of sandstone. It rises abruptly from the Greenbriar 
Valley, above which its summit stands about 300 feet, but sinks to a 
level about 100 feet above the Cadron. These shales, while available 
in so far as their composition, abundance, and geologic and topo- 
graphic disposition are concerned, are too far from railway trans- 
portation to be of immediate use for manufacturing purposes. 
Frenchman Mountain marks the axis of the Cato syncline. It is 
about 250 feet high at its east end, about a quarter of a mile west of 
the town of Cato, but becomes lower toward the west. The axis of 
this syncline dips toward the west, so that the mountains open west- 
ward, and the axis crosses the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern 
Railway near Mayflower station. 
The heavy beds of argillaceous shale forming the base of Frenchman 
Mountain are protected by the usual sandstone bed. This locality is 
several miles from the railroad. 
The so-called Round Mountain group of ridges, lying between 
Preston station and Arkansas River, is made up of alternate beds of 
sandstones and shales that set one in the other like a nest of saucers. 
Many of these basic shales are adapted to the manufacture of pipes 
and paving bricks, but they have never been utilized. The less basic 
beds are available for the manufacture of refractory goods. They all 
occur in the greatest abundance, well located topographically, of 
good quality, and convenient to the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and 
Southern Railway. 
Clays derived directly from shales by decomposition are common 
over much of Faulkner County, but as a rule they are so concealed 
and so irregular in distribution that but little can be said of them. 
The}^ are to be sought on the upturned edges of the clay shales where 
these rocks have broken down under disintegrating influences, and as 
the sandstones usually form the hills and ridges and the shales the 
valleys, these clays are to be looked for chiefly in the valleys, between 
the sandstone ridges. Such clays are often spoken of by the people as 
u rot ten slate." They are abundant at the bases of some hills of shale 
