Preliminary Report of a Geological Reconnoissance of Louisiana (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Preliminary Report of a Geological Reconnoissance of Louisiana

The prairies of northeast Calcasieu are very level, often marshy, with a grey, ashy soil, and are dotted with clumps of long-leaved pine, while a low shrub, Styraa: pulverulcnta, covers densely the lower grounds. As we advance southward, black jack and post oak, mingling with the pine, testify of an improvement in the soil, on which innumerable herds of cattle and horses find luxuriant pastur age, while the houses of the pastoral population are dotted along the watercourses to the right and the left. These streams usually have their heads in low, marshy flats, but are often bordered by bodies of good, arable land, well timbered. In the more southerly portion, however, within forty or fifty miles of the coast, the clumps and strips of timber disappear altogether - the Calcasieu prairie proper being a treeless, perfectly level plain, whose soil improves to the southward, in consequence of the approach to the surface of a cal careous clay stratum, which is frequently exposed in washes. It is also struck in wells at the town of Lake Charles, occasionally with beds of marine shells, as is the case on the Mississippi coast.* Ou the shore of the lake, outcrops of reddish clay, sand and loam recall vividly the profile at Cote Blancherl'

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