The Arkansas advocate., 1835-07-31

oDSerVed, was not dlssImlar 10 this. arree-
 ing further in the profusion of helices and
 other land shells with which it abounded.
 he country here appeared to consist of a ] cham ot pralrles running westward. and parallel with Red river for very great dis tanee. Some of these prairies were mere bald spots, of half an acre and upwards. surrounded by plants, whilst others were sad to contain several hundred acres. In every instance they were surrounded with belt of timber and plants peculiar to the country. l was informed by Judge Cross. q gentleman we'll acquainted with the coun try, and to whose intelligence and hospital fly 1 owe many obligations, that these pfalres extend probably many hundred miles 10 the West, and that 1t Is an opinion deserving of being entertained, that plants are encroaching upon the prafies generally. It was with sincere pleasure found myself upon geological grounds, with which was well acquainted. The prairies were cover ed with the fossils which, as have before observed, characterize the New Jersey green sand formations, but the superficial soi was uniformly of deep black color, resembling charred wood, and i'll wet wea ther IS ot waxy, plastic consistency, that makes It extremely disagreeable to move amongst It's fertility is remarkable, and renders It eminently fitted for cotton, which, l as had many opportunities of observing. succeeds well. The black soil. which is substantially calcareous, contains, as I found from slight experiments, proportion of carbon
 
 's hls was one of the most lovely coun tres had seen, gentle rolling surface and fine woods, in which Is an abundance of the indigenous crab apple, with the beautiful DOW wood or hols dare, as its usually cal ted. On examining where the streams had aoraded the lower parts of the land, and digging Tn various places, found that all these portions of the country, which con- sisted of prairie land, were bottomed upon immense beds of rotten limestone, derived from the testaceous remains of the nlollus- Ca have named, entire shells of which in soft state are still imbedded in the broken down masses once composed of shells.- The zone of black land here does not an- pear to have breadth of more than five miles; wherever 1t Is. the same fossils are found, with the underyaves profusely scat tered around on the suffnce. Sometimes tue black earth gave place 10 deep red marie oi great fertility, but in this marie found no shells; they seemed peculiar to the black prairie land. It was evident was here upon an ancient floor of the ocean from which we may infer it had retired with comparative tranquility, the surface being so little disturbed. The broken down ma rlne shelly matter had accumulated in local beds and extensive hill deposites, after the manner ln which we know some existing species accumulate, and the general irregu- larity ot the surface was not dissmiIar to that which is presented by the various soun- dings ot marine coasts, where recent sur faces are forming. These accumulations are more or less covered with vegeto ani- maj deposite, that by the constantly acting power of the elements, is partially removed and carried by rains towards the streams; hence this covering is diminished in some places, and thickened in others.
 s' In some situations the black sod is two or three feet deep. whilst in others it is on- y few inches thick, in which latter situa- tons, the tender roots of plants, having in extreme dry weather, to contend with d caustic calcareous bed, are liable to perish; the Indian corn for this reason, IS some times what is called fired, its leaves drying up and wasting away. These characteris- tlcs of the prairie country, as far as this particular zone of prairies Is concerned, are common to the vast extent of country to the west of the points l examined. To the east the zone extends from north latitude 33 degrees 40 minutes, 10 north latitude g degrees 80 minutes, in the State of Aaba- ma, and can be traced at intervals to north latitude 40 degrees 30 minutes, in the State of New Jersey. Throughout this very ex- tended line, all of winch have personally examined, the characteristic shells of this subcretaceous formation have been fonnd 1 possess gryph9, exogyra, and other shells from localities far up the false Washita, the neighborhood of the Kamesha, from Mount Prairie in Arkansas, from Mississippi. from Prairie Bluffs in Alabama, and from New Jersey, all of them identical; and in the subcretaceous deposites of Alabama, I have found the greatest profusion of fossil equivalents of the genera peculiar to the green sand beds of Europe. l hope at no distant period to be able to trace, with some precision, the anclent littoral bounds of that geological period, so clearly demarcated by all the nnequivocal circumstances have described"
 The passage we are now about to quote on the origin of the prairies, Is forcible and novel: