USA > Texas > Tarrant County > History of Texas, together with a biographical history of Tarrant and Parker counties; containing a concise history of the state, with portraits and biographies of prominent citizens of the above named counties, and personal histories of many of the early settlers and leading families > Part 25
USA > Texas > Parker County > History of Texas, together with a biographical history of Tarrant and Parker counties; containing a concise history of the state, with portraits and biographies of prominent citizens of the above named counties, and personal histories of many of the early settlers and leading families > Part 25
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West of the Grand prairie plateau we find the central basin region, which is principally occupied by strata of the Paleozoie forma- tions. The eastern and southern border of this area is plainly marked by the scarp of the Grand prairie. Its western border is not determined further than that in Texas it is terminated by the Guadaloupe mountains in El Paso county. In its topography it shows a gradual elevation toward the west, most usually, however, in a series of steps which riso one above the other, having the ascent facing toward the southeast and a long gentle slope toward the west, the average rise being less than eight feet per mile.
At the edge of the Staked Plain, which is a newer formation superimposed upon these, there is an abrupt elevation of from 200 to 300 feet in places, and a continued rise toward the west to a height of 3,100 feet. West of the Pecos the rise is much more rapid, being about fifteen feet per mile. The dip of the strata, which on the east is toward the northwest not exceeding forty feet to the
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mile, is reversed, that is, it is to the south- east, and brings the edges of the strata to the surface again after crossing the river. In the southeast corner of this region we find the Archaan arca of Llano county, around which the upturned edges of the older paleo. zoic rocks are exporel at a considerably greater elevation than that of the basin north of them, giving the overlying rocks of the basin itself a northward dip.
The western extension of this southern border has not been examined. We find the northern border of our basin in the Wichita mountains in the Indian Territory, where the edge of the Silurian rocks is again exposed at a higher altitude than the interior portion of our region. This region is, therefore, of a basin form of structure, with the exposed edges of its lower members and the under- lying rocks topographically higher on the northern, w stern and southern borders than on the east or in the center.
The formations which occupy this basin, if we except some overlying cretaceons and the plains formation, are almost entirely con- fined to the Carboniferous and Permian sys- tems. These consist of beds of limestone, sandstone, sands, clays and shales, with coal, gypsum and salt as associated deposits. The general dip of all the strata in the eastern portion of the basis is to the northwest, but its elevation along the eastern border is less than in almost any other portion of it; conse- quently there can be little hope of finding artesian water from any catchment area on this side, although some of the strata (the lower sandstone and shales) are well adapted for carrying water, and where suitable topo- graphic conditions exist do furnish artesian water. An instance of this is found in the flowing well at Gordon, but such cases are the exception and not the rule. The same
series of sandstones and shales are exposed on the southeastern border, and the flowing wells at and around Trickham and Waldrip find their supply in them. The conditions are very favorable in the valley of the Colo- rado and some distance north, between the 99th and 100th meridians, for similar wells The rocks of this age are covered by later deposits in the Wichita mountains, and it is therefore impossible to judge of the possibil- ity of their water-bearing character there. Similar rocks are exposed on the western border of this basin, in the vicinity of Van Horn and further north in the Guadaloupe mountains. They are reached by a well 832 feet deep at Toyah, some seventy miles east of Van IJorn. This well has an abundant flow. We have, therefore, in the lower mem- bers of the Carboniferons rocks of this basin water-bearing strata, the exposed edges of which on the southeast and west are suffi- ciently elevated to furnish artesian water to portions of the basins in their immediate vieinity.
We do not know what interruptions to the subterranean flow may exist in the way of dikes or fissures, and therefore the arcal ex- tent of this portion favorably situated cannot be given until the topography and geology are better known. The quality of the water from every well thus far secured in this basin, which has its origin in this series of rocks, is highly saline, and it is safe to assume from this and from the character of the deposits that no fresh water can be ob- tained from this source. Therefore, if the supply be general over the entire region, it will only be adapted for limited uses. In addition to this, this water-bearing bed can be reached in the greater portion of the region only after passing through the ontire series of Permian strata and those of the up-
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permost Carboniferous, amounting in all to 2,000 or 3,000 feet, or even more in places.
If there be any other hope for an artesian water supply in this region, the catchment arev must be either in the pre-Carboniferous rocks of the central mineral region and the Wichita mountains or in the Guadaloupe and connected ranges. That such a catchment area exists on the south is fully proved by the powerful springs at Lampasas and in San Saba county, all of which have their origin below the rocks of Carboniferous age. Some of these springs, such as the Lampasas, have their vent through rocks of this period, but they belong to the very lowest strata, and the temperature of the water proves that it comes from still greater depths. All such water is highly mineralized, but much of it reems suitable for general uses after exposure to the air has dispelled the sulphuretted hy- drogen. Others of these springs, like that at Cherokee, San Saba county, spring through rocks below the Carboniferous, and these fur- nish water of an excellent quality. The dip of these rocks is much greater than the over- lying Carboniferous, and the water supply would therefore be rapidly carried beyond the depths of ordinary artesian borings. The conditions of outcropping strata are similar in the Wichita mountains to those of Llano and San Saba counties, but we have no such evidence in the way of springs to prove their value, and no boring has been carriel far enough to test the matter, although prepara- tions are now under way to do so. No rocks of similar age have been observed in the Guadaloupes. We must therefore conclude that while the artesian conditions of the cen- tral basin are not unfavorable, the probabili- ties are against securing an adequate supply of water sufficiently free from mineral matter to be of use for general purposes, unless it
be from the sandstones of the Guadaloupe mountains, which would require sinking to impracticable depths in most places. All ex- ceptions will be of purely local extent and will require much local topographic and geo- logical work for their designation.
There still remains the area of the Staked Plains formation to be discussed, but our knowledge of its geology is too limited to permit anything but the most general state- ment. The upper portion of these plains is composed of strata of later Tertiary or possi- bly Quaternary age, underlaid by a conglom- erate and sandstone of earlier date than the Trinity sands, dipping southeast. It is this bed that furnishes the surface water of the plains, and from it gush the headwaters that form the Colorado, Brazos, and Red rivers The beds underlying this are probably Per. mian on the southern border, but newer for. mations may intervone toward the north. It is possible that this conglomerate bed may yield artesian water near the western border of the State, and it is said that one such well has been secured. It is the opinion of the State Geologist, however, based on such knowledge as he can obtain, that the probabilities of artesian water on the plains are rather unfavorable than otherwise. It will require a considerable amount of work in western New Mexico to decide the matter finally.
The well at l'ecos City most probably be longs to the series newer than that described under the Grand prairie region, and there- fore gives no clue to the area north of it.
The trans-Pecos mountain district from the Guadaloupe mountains to the Rio Grande consists of numerous mountain ranges and detached peaks which rise from comparatively level plains. These plains are composed of loose material which has been derived from
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the erosion of the mountains and sometimes has a thickness of over 1,000 feet, as is proved by the wells along the Texas Pacific & South- ern Pacific railways. The geologic formations of the mountains themselves consist of granites, sandstones, schists, and quartzites and Siluri- an, Carboniferous, and Cretaceons limestones. The whole area is faulted, broken, and cut by intrusive porphyries, basalts, granites, and other eruptives.
These conditions of structure prevent any other than a general unfavorable report on the district, although in certain localities conditions may, and probably do, exist favor- able to the securing of artesian water.
Mineral springs are to be found every- where in the world, the financial success at- tending the management of them depending mainly upon advertising and equipment. It is therefore unnecessary to detail here the springs and wells that are frequently visited for medicinal purposes. The mineral elo- ments of such waters generally comprise com- mon salt, sulphur, magnesia, soda, iron, salts of lime and potash and traces of a few other minerals, and often of organic matter. More or less of these elements are also to be found in nearly all artesian water.
OAVES.
Caves are very numerons in the limestones of the Carboniferous, and some of them are very extensive. Very few of them have been explored for any purpose other than idle curiosity. "I entered only one of them," says a member of the geological staff, "and traversed it about three-fourths of a mile. Sometimes the roof would be high overhead, and then again to crawl upon our hands and knees. There were lateral openings at different places, but the main opening.
Most of the way the bottom was dry, but here and there a pool of water would be found standing in a basin of calcareons rock. Stalagmites covered the floor and stalactites hung from the top. We came to a place where there was a descent of the bottom of the cave for several feet, and, low- ering our candles into the opening, found on account of the gas they would not burn; so we retraced our way to the entrance. This cave is in the massive limestone, three miles down the Colorado river, on the west side from the Sulphur Spring, and just below the month of Falls Creek."
Other caves have large quantities of guano in them, deposited by the bats. Some of these deposits are twenty feet thick, and are of un- known extent. These caves will, in the near future, no doubt, be fully explored, and their valnable beds of guano put upon the market.
PETRIFAOTIONS.
Some magnificent specimens of petrifac- tion are found in several places in the State.
TRANS-PECOS TEXAS.
That portion of western Texas lying west of the Pecos river is called "trans-Pecos Texas." The mineral deposits of that region are proved to be extensive and of great richness:
1. By their extensive outerops, the many assays of which show the almost universal presence of the precious metals in thein.
2. By the prospecting and work already done.
The advantages offered the miners and prospectors are:
1. The ease with which the outerops may be distinguished.
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2. The proximity to railroad transporta- tion and ease of access by wagon roads.
3. The healthy elimate and freedom from fear of Indian depredations.
4. Little need of timbering for mines. The disadvantages are:
1. The present clouded titles of certain districts.
2 The lack of definite land lines, mark- ing exact boundaries between surveys.
3. The lack of surface water. (This can be supplied by reservoirs or can be found in the mines themselves.)
4. The demand for a yearly cash payment on each claim in addition to the amount of work required.
All of these disadvantages except the third can be removed by proper legislative action, and the country opened to prospectors in earnest, and as easy terms offered as those by Mexico and other sister States. When this is done, and not sooner, may we expect to see trans. Pecos Texas take that position among ' the mining countries of the world which the richness of her deposits so surely warrants.
While western Texas has been regarded as perfectly valueless, and its value doubted even uow, because it is not settled by farmers and stock-raisers, and the faet is that it is not and will not be fit for farming and stock-raising without water reservoirs and irrigation, there are in the mountains mineral districts of un- common value. The question arises, why have these resources not been developed ?
This can be answered by simply hinting at the circumstances as they oxisted in western Texas up to a few years ago. In former years the want of water, added to the danger of Indians, prevented the settling of western Texas; and even travelers hurried through parts of the country, as the Sierra de los Do- lores (" the Mountains of Misery," now Quit-
man and surrounding mountains), with its Puerta de los Lamentaciones ("Gate of Lamentations"), and nobody stopped long enough to examine the mountains for their mineral resources; or if perchance some one did stop he did so at the peril of his life, as is proved by the numerous graves which are found in the mountains.
Up to ten or twelve years ago military de- tachments were kept at stage stations on the road to Fort Davis and El Paso, to protect these stations from the Indians. Under such circumstances travelers were not inclined to lie over at the station houses, which were uninviting, and to make geological examina- tions of the hills and mountains, or try to ascertain their ore-bearing character.
The daring pioneers who prospected and who began the development of other mineral districts of the United States had not suffi- cient inducement to undergo like hardships and risk their time and life in Texas, for this State had no mining law granting to pros- pectors any right to discoveries they may have made. The Mexicans living along the Rio Grande were farmers, -- very indolent, too poor to bny arms, too timid to make explora- tion trips to the mountains without arıns.
In 1883 the legislature of the State passed a mining law, but its contents and ruling were not very tempting. Very few persons in Texas knew, and nobody outside the State suspected, that there was really a mining law at all. It was quite natural that no mineral resources were expected in a State which did not deem it worth while to pass sensible mining laws.
The railroads made traveling through trans-Pecos Texas easier and quite dangerless. They brought mountain ranges which were hardly accessible in formor times in easier reach; and in 1889 the legislature of the
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State passed a new mining law. The terms, however, under which this law grants mining rights to prospectors are not as inviting as those of the mining laws in force in the mineral districts in other States of the United States or Mexico. There are very few actual prospectors who are able or willing to pay the locating and recording fees, and in addi- tion to their work make a payment annually of $50 in cash on each claim, some of which they may not wish to patent, thus entailing a loss of both work and money. This feature of the law encourages capitalists to locate and secure mineral lands for speenlation, and discourages, or it may even be said excludes, the actnal prospector. This law does not prevent persons from erecting corner monu- ments of fictitious mineral claims wherever they think good indications might be found, which will at least serve to prevent other honest prospectors from locating on them. There are numerous such bogus locations, which have neither been surveyed by the anthorized surveyor, nor recorded in the Lind office, nor the assessment work done, nor the cash payments made on them. There is nobody in the mineral districts to watch and prevent such work, even if it were prohibited by law. The required annual payment of $50 on each claim location would certainly benefit the school or university funds if locations were made under the law; but under the circumstances very few locations will be made. Most of the alternate sections, as well as larger tracts of school and university land, in West Texas in their present condition can not be sold at a reasonable price; they can not be rented out as farming or grazing land; they . therefore bring no revenue through taxation, and they are, and evidently will remain, dead capital urtat the mineral re- sources are developed in the mountains, and
water found or provided for in the flats; and the present mining law should be made as favorable as is possible to secure this develop- ment. But this is not the only drawback.
The titles to some of the lands of west Texas are clonded by large Mexican or Span- ish grants, covering hundreds, and some of them (as, for instance, the Ronguillo grant) thousands of square miles of the best mineral and prospective farming lands. Prospectors who are able and who are willing to submit to the terms of the mining law are afraid to risk time and money withont knowing on whose land they are locating, or which party, State, railroad, or grantee, has a right to grant them the rights.
In other parts of the trans- Pecos region, where there are no Spanish or Mexican grants clouding the titles, the prospector can, in very few cases only, be perfectly certain whether his claim is located on State or railroad land, even though the location be made by the authorized surveyor, who knows or professes to know the lines. The terms which are offered by the railroad are for the most part so exacting that in fact it is almost impossible for a prospector to accept them. Thus, instead of offering sufficient induce- ments to secure a greater amount of pros- pecting, everything is against the prospector, and helps to prevent the development of the mineral resources of the State.
The scarcity of water, also a drawback to the development of the mineral and other resources of west Texas, can be overcome by storage reservoirs, and will be partially over- come by the water found in deeper mines .. The scarcity of mining timber is not severely felt, for little timboring is required in the solid material of the western mountains.
The scarcity of fuel is a drawback, the greator because it prevents the utilization of
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3,
the poorer grade of ores which can not stand shipment, and also in less degree on account of its need for use under steam boilers for hoisting, pumping, and ventilating machin- ery. But poorer ores might be stored until the coal deposits of Texas are sufficiently explored and developed to furnish cheap fuel, or until the unjustified prejudice against the excellent brown coal of the Tertiary is over- come sufficiently to bring it into nse.
The railroads will no doubt find it to their interest to make cheaper freight rates for coal and ore to and from trans-Pecos Texas.
The mineral resources, like those of the Quitman district, will and must attract atten- tion, and will be appreciated and utilized as soon as a more liberal mining law makes them acceptable to prospectors, as soon as the title clouds are removed, and as soon as it is pos- sible to determine the exact location of the claims. The advantages for mining are fully as great as the disadvantages that have been mentioned, the proximity of the railroad to most of the mountains being by no means the least. The communication from the mount- ains to the railroad is easy, the roads either good or capable of being made so at nominal cost. The climate is healthy, and there is not the slightest danger of Indian outbreaks or other disturbances so common in many other mining districts.
ECONOMIC GEOLOGY.
The practical man desires a knowledge of the useful minerals and other natural resources, and he, therefore, often fails to appreciate the necessity for such determinations as have been laboriously worked out for the geological reports. But experience has clearly shown that haphazard methods of development are not only ruinons to individuals and
corporations engaged in mining, but also detrimental to the legitimate industrial growth of any region. Little as it may be realized by those who have suffered from ill.advised speculation in mining property, and undesir- able as the revelation may be to those who live by preying upon the credulity of invest- ors, it is certainly true that there are no isolated cases of marvelous subterranean wealth. If a bonanza in gold, silver, copper, lead, iron, or manganese exists anywhere in central Texas, it is because certain causes have acted to produce it; and if one such occurrence be known, others of the same kind probably exist in the same region. Still, it does not follow that the discovery by accident of one ore body necessitates a similar method for acquiring knowledge of others. Nothing is now more firmly established than the close relations of geologic structure and mineral d.position. Every competent mining engi- neer is a structural geologist, or he is wofully unfitted for his profession, however well . trained he may be in other very necessary directions. The really practical miner is often the best judge of the proper means of attacking a special problem in excavation, provided that it requires no knowledge be- yond the range of his own experience. But whenever any person, of whatever training and experience, assumes to pass an opinion upon valnes after simple inspection, without such knowledge of the structure and of the chemical composition as can come only from varied experience and thorough tests, he is arrogating to himself powers beyond the capacity of any human being.
No industry can be built upon such a foun- dation. Whatever may be the future of our district, its development will depend upon its resources as they are, not as they are estimated by any individual, although correct statements
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of fact will aid materially in attracting atten- tion from capitaliste. Unfounded hopes and guesses of inexperienced persons, if converted into cash, may produce a temporary artificial excitement, which will certainly result in eventual disaster. The money which has already been honestly expended in the Cen- tral Mineral Region by well-meaning enthu- siasts, often withont competent advice, would have sufficed to determine the value of the resources of the tract. if it had all been under- standingly applied. The amount actually expended in unnecessary work in one investi- gation would have given a fair knowledge of the economic value of a vast area had it been used in a different manner. That this is not idle talk, but hard business sense, is proved by the fact that the writer has already been able in several instances to predict accurately the results of explorations in advance of the work, simply from his familiarity with the geologie structure, as outlined in the first part of the second geological report.
AGRICULTURE.
SOILS.
The origin of all soils is from the decom- position of the rocks, clays, shales, and other matorial going to make up the ernst of the earth. When any part of the earth's crust is exposed to the influence of the rain and dew, the cold of winter and the heat of snm- mer, no matter how compact that material may be, it gradually decomposes and the particles wash down and make the soils of the valley below.
Then again the lichens, although in many instances they are of microscopic size, fasten themselves upon the rocks and there secrete an acid which gradnally decomposes the rocks, and the particles go to make up the soils.
The clays and other soft materials are more easily broken up and washed down by the rains, and they too enter into the composition of the soils. Again, growing upon this newly made soil will be plants which in turn will die, and the material of which they are com- posed will combine with the rock material and form a soil somewhat different from that of purely mineral origin. The difference in the soil is often observed in the color of the two; the last, or that on top, is usually darker than that below, caused by the large amount of vegetable matter contained therein.
The material from which most soils are derived has been subjected to this disintegra- tion several times since it was first deposited as rock material. The sandy soils are mostly made up from the sandstones of the different formations, which were in turn derived from the granites and other igneous rocks and deposited along the shores of the former oceans. The calcareous soils have their origin from the limestones, and the limestones were deposited in the bed of the old ocean, the material coming from the worn-out shells of the bygone times. A perpetual round of disintegration, mixing, and redeposition has been going on since the beginning, our soils being the work of all the ages. In the clas- sification of the soils some writers have dis- tingnished them as sedimentary soils, being those which are in the immediate vicinity of the rocks from which they were formed, and the transported soils, being those which have been brought from a distance. This classifi- cation will be well enough if the fact be kept in mind that nearly all the stratified rock material has itself been brought from another locality by the very same forces that are now transporting and depositing the other class of soils. There is no soil that has not at one timne been rock.
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