150 THE CLAYS OF ARKANSAS. 
Mr. Buchanan, after having spent some time in examining the 
kaolin deposits of Pike County, wrote the following general conclu- 
sions regarding them: 
The beds are from 3 to 9 feet in thickness and are very variable in color. Shafts only 
a hundred feet apart exhibit considerable differences in the sections. The following 
is a typical section as near as such a section is possible: 
Typical section in Pike County. 
Feet. 
Sand and gravel 3-25 
Sand varying in color, but generally reddish or pink, with thin 
sheets of iron oxide 4 
Kaolin, solid, pale yellow to white, with red or yellow streaks 3-9 
Sand 3+ 
The colors found in one shaft were not always the same as those 
in an adjacent one. The largest area of kaolin found in one body 
covered about 10 acres. The greatest depth at which the kaolin was 
found was 25 feet. 
So far as these deposits have been examined they appear to be 
rather lens-shaped beds of limited distribution. Some of these beds 
cover only half an acre; others cover an area of 8 or 10 acres. Mr. 
Buchanan is of the opinion that the entire kaolin area probably does 
not exceed 350 acres. These lands lie in sees. 19 and 30, T. 8 S., 
R. 23 W., and in sees. 23, 24, 25, and 26, and probably in sees. 35 
and 36, T. 8 S., R. 24 W. 
The more massive beds of kaolin contain no evidence of its deriva- 
tion beyond its sedimentary origin. The kaolin contains, as one 
might expect, fragments of quartz, but not enough to affect the value 
of the material for economic purposes. It has a conchoidal fracture, 
but within the stratum there are no bedding or lamination planes. In 
the beds above and below it there are evidences that the accompany- 
ing strata were deposited in water, a bed of sand underlying and a 
bed of less pure kaolin overlying it. There can be no doubt, there- 
fore, of the sedimentary origin of the Pike County kaolin. 
It is worthy of mention that no exposures of feldspathic rocks are 
known anywhere in this neighborhood. The nearest large exposure 
is at Magnet Cove in Hot Spring County, 50 miles distant, but as the 
Pike County kaolin is Cretaceous it can have no genetic relation to 
the Magnet Cove rocks, for the latter are probably of post-Cretaceous 
age; certainly they are not pre-Cretaceous, and could not therefore 
have supplied the material for this kaolin. 
The Pike County kaolin is different in physical characters from any 
other kaolin thus far found in the State. It is not plastic in its natu- 
ral condition, but has a hardness of about 1.5 in the mineralogical 
scale, being easily scratched with the nail. When dry it adheres 
strongly to the tongue, but it can not absorb enough water to render 
it plastic, even when left submerged for weeks. In the pit, where it 
