The Opelousas courier., 1885-09-26
LeUisiana's Exhibit.

Yesterday evening Col. ID F. Boyd,
Louisiana Commissioner, left for Shreye
port, where he will remain shol It time,
and then go to Natchitoches, and in
company with Prof. Brown and one or
two other assistants, begin an inspec-
ton that will continue diagonally across
from the Texas border, and take in four
or five parishes. Splendid results are
looked for from this tour of the Colo
nel's. He has issued a lengthy address
to the people of Louisiana, urging them
to assist him in making an exhibit that
will be credit to the State. He asks
the City Council of New Orleans and
the police juries of the parishes, and
public spirited citizens to aid him tinan
cially to the best of their ability. Col.
Boyd eloquently presents his caase in
the following paragraphs:
'All the industries, great and small,
should be represented, and manuscripts
and relics bearing upon the history and
romance of Louisiana should be FORTH
coming And which one of all the Amer
lean States has so romantic a history as
louisiana? Here has been the battle
ground of the nations for supremacy on
the American continent; nearly every
spot in the State is sacred ground, full
of hallowed memories of chivalric deeds
and heroic sufferings. At the coming
Exposition let it be told what Louisiana
has been, as well as what she is and
what she expects to be. The history of
the Creole race is an heroic poem, full
of feeling and instruction to the con-
templative student, and abounding in
all that is noble and glorious in peo-
pie. The Creole modest, gentle, retlr-
ing, is unknown to the American people.
But race that can produce the great
naturalist Audubon, of st. James parish,
and the greatest of military engineers,
Beauregard, of Orleans, and whose bril-
liant deeds emblazon the proudest pages
of American history, need shrink from
no comparison with any race that goes
to make up the great American people.
And in the graces and elegances OF a
refined social culture, who are their
equals? The State Commissioner begs
the Creoles to give up, for once, their
modest reserve, and help him show the
world who they are and what they can
do.
A special to the Picaynne from Wash
ington, dated Sept. II, says: Mr.. John
NJ. Avery, of Avery's Island, near New
Iberia. has, through Senator Gibson, re-
questcd that the operations of the geol-
ogical survey projected for North Lou
isiana may be extended to the south
western portion Of the State, and espe-
cially to the parishes of Calcasieu, st.
Landry and lberia.
In the parish OF St. Landry, mean
Opelousas, Mr.. Avery has information
that there is an extensive limestone and
marble formation, and from his personal
observation Mr.. Avery believes that a
very large portion of the parish of Cal
casieu is bedded by the same sulphur
deposit as is found west of the Calcasieu
river. He thinks that large barren
waste in that parish is underlaid by
sulphur, and that the hills attributed to
prairie dogs have been formed by the
escaping gases fiom the sulphur below.
He has come to this conclusion from the
fact that soundings to the depth of &C
feet in these hills show no qualification,
whereas similar boriugs between these
elevations develop definite strata.