148 THE CLAYS OF ARKANSAS. 
In a general way the northern border of the Mesozoic rocks in Pike 
County passes from Antoine just north of Wolf Creek post-office, 
Brocktown, and Murfreesboro, and south of Royalston, passing into 
Howard County where the county line crosses Muddy Fork of Little 
River. North of this line it is useless to look for kaolin in commercial 
quantities in Pike County.® 
CLAY DEPOSITS. 
It has been known for several years that kaolin exists in Pike 
County, but the only plant of any kind in the county that is engaged 
in the manufacture of clay products is a small brick plant at Nathan. 
Some fine specimens of kaolin were exhibited at the exposition 
held at Little Rock in the summer of 1887. These specimens were 
labeled "Pulaski County/' but they must have come from the Vaughn 
Creek beds, in Pike County. At least no such kaolin is known in 
Pulaski County. 6 
The kaolin beds of Vaughn Creek have been examined by the State 
Geological Survey at the pits opened in the NW. | SW. \ sec. 19, T. 
8 S., R. 24 W., near S. D. Hanna's house. The locality is known in 
the surrounding country as "the chalk bank." Its discovery seems 
to have been due to the fact that pieces of kaolin were torn out by 
an uprooted tree. The material has been used to some extent through 
the country for school chalk. 
The kaolin lies in horizontal beds in the tops of the hills that skirt 
the right bank of Vaughn Creek. These hills are low and are covered 
with an abundance of waterworn pebbles and cobblestones of Pleis- 
tocene age. In the valley of Vaughn Creek, about 75 feet below the 
summit of the kaolin-bearing ridges, lignites of the Trinity beds 
(lower Cretaceous) have been found in digging a well at Mr. S. D. 
Hanna's, .in the SE. \ NW. \ sec. 19, T. 8 SI, R. 24 W. The strati- 
graphic position of the koalin would admit of its belonging either to 
the lower Cretaceous, the upper Cretaceous, or to the Tertiary. In 
the absence of other evidence it is therefore impossible to say to 
which of these horizons it belongs. It is believed that the beds are 
of Cretaceous age, but this can not be stated as anything more than 
an opinion based on observations of the topography and stratigraphy 
of the Cretaceous beds farther west and south. 
The accompanying section (fig. 14) is exposed in one of the old 
prospecting pits dug on the kaolin. It is impossible to say whether 
this kaolin bed represents the full thickness of the deposit in Pike 
County. A few other smaller holes have been dug in the immediate 
vicinity, but as they are all within 100 feet of this one and were dug 
a The Mesozoic rocks of Pike County are shown on the map of that region accompanying vol. 2 of 
the report of the Geological Survey of Arkansas for 1888. 
b In 1890 these specimens, still labeled ' ' Pulaski County," were on exhibition at the rooms of the State 
Department of Agriculture at Little Rock, 
