96 THE CLAYS OF ARKANSAS. 
more thoroughly is the iron Leached from the soil, and it is by this 
process that the leached lead-colored clays are formed. Such clays are 
therefore most common along the sluggish streams that readily over- 
flow their banks and spread out over wide, marshy bottoms, such as 
Palarm Bayou, East Cadron Creek, and Bayou Meto. And it is over 
the flood plains of these streams that the leached clays are most 
abundant; not, however, in the valleys only, but wherever the con- 
ditions for their formation are favorable. 
The leached clays are available for the manufacture of the common 
grades of pottery, such as jugs, crocks, jars, and milk pans, but as 
their exploitation is not so easy as that of the Tertiary potter's clay 
of the southwestern counties of the State, they can scarcely compete 
with those clays, and can therefore be of slight and local importance. 
CHOCOLATE CLAYS. 
The chocolate-colored clays in some places form wnat are known 
as the "rich buckshot lands"" adjoining the river bottoms. They 
are usually too sandy to be useful for manufacturing purposes. In 
places they are very "fat." They are not everywhere of chocolate 
color, for wherever they contain much organic matter they have 
become black from the mixture of the organic matter with the lime 
with which this clay is at most places freely charged. Some of the 
lie best agricultural lands of the State are on these chocolate clays. 
They are not known to have any value for manufacturing purposes. 
CLAY INDUSTRY. 
The Cypress Valley region about Conway b is covered by a yellowish 
clay, mottled here and there with light-gray patches. These gray 
patches are generally of small area and not very thick. In texture 
the gray clay resembles the yellow, although it has somewhat different 
qualities when manufactured. The upper portion of the yellow clay, 
from which the bricks are usually made, is of a light-yellow color, is 
generally about 2 feet in thickness, and is comparatively free from iron 
nodules. The lower division, from 24 to 30 inches thick, is of much 
darker color, and contains a great quantity of iron nodules ranging 
in size from that of a pin head to that of a walnut. This lower clay 
is not much used for brickmaking. The bricks made from it are 
stronger, harder, and more durable than those made from the upper 
clay, but they do not look so well. 
The clays just mentioned are underlain everywhere throughout 
this district by a black argillaceous shale, which is more or less 
fractured near the surface, becoming harder and more compact as 
«Not to be confused with the limonitic buckshot clays 
b The notes on the brick industry at Conway were prepared principally by William Kennedy. 
