The Forrest City times., 1892-03-11
GEOLOGY OF cRowLEv.s RIDGE.
Fun-sns Facts wl.arh Read Like sh. Liass
 sf Parry Tale.

logical survey Of Arkansas for 1889 contains q most valuable and interesting account of rho geo logical survey of Crowley's Ridge, and makes a book of some 800 pages. It contains map of the whole of Crowley's Ridge from euc end, near Helena, to tbe other near Cape Girardeau in Missouri, and beautiful map of St. Francis county. showing also the eieva- tioEs of all points in the county. It has also many illustrations showing the relations Of the beds of rocks through Northeastern Arkansas to each other.
 Eastern Arkansas is not DOT sion of the state in which minerals of value. have been expected, but the history of Crowley's Ridge and of the valleys east and west of it, must contribute an important and deeply interesting chapter to the geological history of Arkan- sas. The following is Dr. Bran ner's brief summary or the history of crowley's Ridge, and ii reads like fairy tale:
 s.In Tertiary times, the prede- oessor of the Cult of Mexico ex- tended further north than the gulf now does. That body of water covered a large part of Texas, all of Louisiana. most oi Mississippi, much of western Tennessee, and all of Eastern and Southern Ark ansas. The western shore Of this sea in Arkansas entered the state near Ultima Thule, in Sevier county. followed the foothill through Howard, Pike and Clark counties, passed near the old town of Rockport, in Hot Springs county and thence kept west of the Iron Mountain railway to Little Rock All the ground upon which Little Rock now stands was covered by the waters of that sea. while tO the north the shore line followed west of the Iron Mountain railway, and at the northwest corner of Clay county passed into what is now the State of Missouri. From this point it bent eastward to the vicinity of Cairo. H., passed into Kentucky and curved southward past Paris, Huntington and Mid dieton. in west Tennessee.
 Into the great sea thus briefly outlined the waters of the Missis- sippi, of the Arkansas, and of hun dreds of other streams poured vast quantities of mud which were de- posited over the bottom of this body of water just as similar ma terials are being deposited today ia the Gulf of Mexico. We know this 10 be true, not by analogy alone, but because we ind here and there over this old sea bottom the remains of the ancient depos- it's of clays and sands containing the fossil remains of the marine animals that lived during Tertiary times. The total depth of the de- posits originally made in this Arkansas sea we do not know, be- cause the upper parts of the beds have been washed away, but the remaining fragments throw much light on tho subject.
 At Little Rock, for example, what is known as Capitol Hill is the highest part of the city, and this hill is capped with Tertiary beds that rise 10 an elevation of 3s0 feet above present tide level. Bat this Tertiary deposit is only a fragment of what it originally was for the beds are cut of abruptly 10 the east and south showing that they formerly extended further in those directions. But to tho east and south the land is now much lower. tho general elevation being about 225 feet above tide, suggest ing that a thickness of something like l50 feet has been removed from what is now the lower coun- try 10 the east.
 At and near Grand Glaise, Jack son county, the conditions are very similar 10 those just men, tioned. The Iron Mountain rail way between Bradford and Grand Glaise follows the foot of the Ter tiary escarpment of horizontally bedded rocks which end abruptly to the east, while to the west they ebut unconformably against pale oxoic rocks. This Tertiary mar gin rises 100 feet or more above the flat country to the east. These beds are, of course, the fragment ary remains of those which once extended away to the east and connected with others of the same age in what is now Crowley's s Ridge, and with still others in the Tertiary highlands of West Ten nessee.
 In Crowley's Ridge itself we have the Tertiary eapping the ridge at many, though not at all places, and rising to an elevation about $50 feet above present tide level, l20 feet above the lower lands to the east and west. Now,