History of Texas, Together with a Biographical History of Milam, Williamson, Bastrop, Travis, Lee and Burleson Counties. Page: 179
[7], iv-vii, [2], 10-826, [2] p., [56] leaves of plates : ill., ports. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this book.
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HiSTORY OF TEXAS. ij
San Jacinto and Buffalo are types, have their
origin on their southern slope. At Rockland,
in Tyler county, and along the various
railroads that cross the area of these sands,
as shown upon the map, typical sections can
be seen. The base of these beds are sandy
clays and sands, with some lignite.
The strata often contain carbonate of lime
in appreciable quantities, and sulphur and
gypsum are of frequent occurrence.
The timber-belt beds are composed of
siliceous and glauconitic sands with vwlite,
brown and black clays, and have associated
with then lignite beds sometimes as much
as twelve feet in thickness; iron pyrites,
gypsum and various bituminous materials
also occur. Carboinate of lime is also widely
disseminated throughout the beds, sometimes
as limestone, but more often as calcareous
concretions or in calcareous sandstones.
The basal clays are, as the name implies,
beds of stratified clays and contain masses
of concretionary limestone and large quantities
of gypsum.
The Upper Cretaceous is composed in its
upper members of great beds of clay somiewhat
similar to the basal clays above, which
were doubtless derived from these. This is
underlaid by the Austin clialk, below which
we find another series of clay shales overlying
the lower cross timber sands.
The rock formation of the Grand prairie
belongs to the Lower Cretaceous series, and
consists of a great thickness of limestones
and chalks-magnesian, arenaceous and even
argillaceous in places-which is underlaid by
a great bed of sand and conglomerate, known
as the Trinity Sands.
We have in these formations, therefore,
well marked and definite sandy or porous
beds, which are enclosed by others practically
impervious, Some of these are the Orangesands, the middle portion of the Fayette beds,
the lower cross timber sands anld the upper
cross timber or Trinity sands. On the lower
Rio Grande there occurs a rock known as
the Carrizo sandstone, tlhe geologic age of
which is not yet exactly determined, but
which mullst be included among the other
water-bearing beds.
That thebe beds are indeed , ciatclilment
basins and fully capable of supplying thle
belts nearer the gulf with flowing water lhas
been amply verified by actual and successful
boring. In the coast-clay belt artesian water
has been secured in many places, a.- at
Houston and vicinity, at Galveston, at Velasco,
at Corpus Christ;, and at various other
points. The shallowest of these wells is at
Yorktown, De Witt county, where artesian
water was secured at a depth of a very few
feet. At Houston water is obtained in wells
from 150 to 400 feet deep, and the water is
practically free from mineral matter. At
Galveston, fifty miles southeast, the wells are
from 600 to 1,000 feet deep, and yield water
carrying salt, etc., in smliall quantities. Tlhe
-flow at Velasco is reported to be good, but at
Corpus Christi it is highly charged with mineral
matter. The quantity of mineral mJatter
contained in the water seems to vary with
the depth and distance from the outcrop of
the " catclhment " basin.
It can be stated, therefore, from our present
knowledge that throughout the coastclay
district artesian water can be obtained
where the topographic conditions are suitable,
but that it may be more or less impregnated
with mineral matter leached out of the
containing stratum.
While the timber-belt beds are not classed
as artesian beds, it is nevertheless the factthat
favorable conditions exist in numerous
localities, and, although no great flows haveI o
HrASTOR YOF TEXAS
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History of Texas, Together with a Biographical History of Milam, Williamson, Bastrop, Travis, Lee and Burleson Counties. (Book)
Book containing a brief overview of the state of Texas and more specific focus on six specific counties, with extensive biographical sketches about persons related to the history of those places. An alphabetical index of persons who are included follows the table of contents at the front of the book.
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Lewis Publishing Company. History of Texas, Together with a Biographical History of Milam, Williamson, Bastrop, Travis, Lee and Burleson Counties., book, 1893; Chicago, Illinois. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth29785/m1/184/?rotate=270: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .