MILLER COUNTY. 135 
MILLER COUNTY. 
GENERAL GEOLOGY. 
Miller County is entirely within the Tertiary-Quaternary area. The 
beds everywhere penetrated by wells are Tertiary. Some of them 
contain marine fossils and others plant remains. Prof. William 
Moseley, at one time teacher at Texarkana, reports that a fossil palm 
was found in a well near Texarkana. 
CLAY DEPOSITS. 
Over the flooded regions of Miller County the soils are in some 
places alluvial, in others boggy slashes, and in others buckshot clays. 
The clays of the surface slashes are at many places leached clear of 
iron by the action of organic acids and carbonic acid, so that these 
clays are available for the manufacture of the coarser grades of pot- 
tery. This leaching, however, is a surface phenomenon, and such 
clays are nowhere more than 3 or 4 feet deep. 
The nature of the surface, with the exceptions just mentioned, has 
nothing to do with the existence or nonexistence of pottery clays in 
the stratified beds below. The presence of such beds is seldom indi- 
cated by natural agencies in a flat region, where erosion is very slight, 
so that the existence, thickness, and character of clay beds must 
usually be determined by testing augers or pits, by digging wells, or 
by other artificial means. 
The higher Tertiary lands about Texarkana occupy T. 15 S., R. 28 
W., and a little of the adjoining territory. It is within this area, 
and principally in the northern tier of sections, that the pottery clays 
are worked. The occurrence of these clays on the north side of this 
higher region and the general southeastern dip of the Tertiary rocks 
of this area suggest that the pits now worked are at or near the north- 
ern outcrop of the Tertiary pottery clays and that these same beds 
dip beneath Texarkana. At what depth they lie beneath that city, 
however, can be determined only by ascertaining the dip of the strata. 
Clay is obtained in a series of small openings in the west side of the 
SE. i sec. 5, T. 15 S., R. 28 W. 
The section exposed is as follows: 
Section in sec. 5, T. 15 S., R. 28 W. 
Foot, 
Iron-stained sandy clay 3 
Whitish blue clay 5 
Yellowish sandy clay at bottom. 
The middle bed of 5 feet is a pottery and fire-brick clay. The 
lower yellow sandy clay was tried for brickmaking purposes, bul 
owing to some defect in the work rather than to the material used the 
attempt was unsuccessful. 
