tabular summits a massive, fine-grained sandstone, containing nodules of iron ore. In one place I also saw one of those gigantic tessellated zoophytic impressions,[141] which indicate the existence of coal. The dip of the sandstone is inconsiderable, and to the north-west. Towards the southern extremity of the ridge which I ascended, there are several enormous masses of rock so nicely balanced as almost to appear the work of art; one of them, like the druidical monuments of England, rocked backwards and forwards on the slightest touch. On the shelvings of this extremity of the mountain, I found a new species of Anemone.
As we proceeded in the boat, towards the level of the river, and about a mile below the entrance of the Petit John, we could perceive a slaty and partly horizontal bed of matter, in which there were distinct indications of coal.
5th.] We passed the outlet of the Petit John, a rivulet about 200 miles long, deriving its source with the Pottoe and other streams in the Mazern mountains. Here the hills turn off abruptly to the south, and for four or five miles border the rivulet, which, for some distance, keeping a course not very far from the Arkansa, approaches within 10 miles to the south-east of the Dardanelle settlement. At the distance of {122} about five miles from the first Cherokee village, called the Galley, Mr. D. and myself proceeded to it by land. The first two or three miles presented elevated and rich alluvial lands, but in one or two directions bordered by the back-water. At length we arrived at the Galley hills, a series of low and agreeable acclivities well suited for building. Here the Cherokees had a settlement of about a dozen families, who, in the
