110 THE CLAYS OF ARKANSAS. 
HEMPSTEAD COUNTY. 
GENERAL GEOLOGY. 
Iii its general features the geology of Hempstead County is very 
simple. The rocks of the northern part of the county are upper 
Cretaceous, while those of its southern part are Tertiary. The upper 
Cretaceous rocks are covered with great beds of waterworn material — 
cobblestones, pebbles, and sand. This gravel is especially abundant 
about Bingen and between Nashville and Hickory Creek. 
The line of juncture between the Cretaceous and the "Lignitic" 
(Tertiary) where the latter overlaps the former enters the county at 
a point northeast of Hope, south of the railroad, and, following a 
generally southwest direction, crosses Bois d'Arc Creek about 4 
miles southeast of Fulton. South of this line everything in the 
county is Tertiary, except, of course, the alluvial flood plains of the 
streams and the occasional patches of Pleistocene materials. The 
Cretaceous, however, dips to the southeast beneath the Tertiary, 
and deep wells sunk in any part of the Tertiary region must sooner 
or later strike the Cretaceous rocks. As elsewhere in the State, the 
Tertiary beds are mostly soft and are disposed in horizontal or 
nearly horizontal strata. The whole of this Tertiary part of the 
county has been more or less denuded, but in some places the streams 
have cut out the beds to make the valleys, leaving the remnants of 
these beds in the hilltops, where they are covered with a thin coating 
of sand, gravel, and loam. 
CLAY DEPOSITS. 
In southern Hempstead County, as elsewhere in the Tertiary 
regions, pottery clays are found in patches. This fragmentary 
nature of the pottery clay deposits may be due either to the original 
pockety nature of the sediments or to subsequent erosion, which has 
removed a great part of the original clay beds. In prospecting to 
determine the extent of known deposits these points should be 
determined first and prospecting carried on accordingly. 
The pottery clay deposits of Hempstead County, so far as they 
have been practically tested, are best known in the neighborhood of 
Spring Hill, a town about 6 miles south of Hope, and in T. 13 S., R. 24 
W., 4 miles south of Hope. 
CLAY INDUSTRY. 
Foley pottery. — There was formerly a small pottery 4 miles south of 
Hope, operated by John Foley. The clay was obtained from a bank 
opened in the \\Y. | SE. 1 , sec. is, f. L3 S., R. 24 W. The clay 
deposit is about 150 yards in diameter, as shown by test pits, and 
aggregates 14 feet in thickness. It is divided into two beds, an 
