the northern part of Texas. This portion
of the route has its locality in a country of surpassing beauty
and fertility, and possesses all the requisites for attracting and
sustaining a dense farming population. It is diversified with
prairies and woodland, and is bountifully watered with numerous
spring brooks, which flow off upon either side of the ridge
above-mentioned. The crest of the ridge is exceedingly smooth and
level, and is altogether the best natural or artificial road I
ever traveled over for the same distance.

After leaving this ridge, the road crosses the Brazos near very
extensive fields of bituminous coal, which burns readily, with a
clear flame, and is very superior in quality.

From the Brazos, the road skirts small affluents of that stream
and the Colorado for two hundred miles. The soil upon this section
is principally a red argillaceous loam, similar to that in the Red
River bottoms, which is so highly productive.

As this route is included within the thirty-second and
thirty-fourth parallels of latitude, it would never be obstructed
with snow. The whole surface of the country is covered with a
dense coating of the most nutritious grass, which remains green
for nine months in the year, and enables cattle to subsist the
entire winter without any other forage.

The line of this road east from Fort Smith would intersect the
Mississippi in the vicinity of Memphis, Tenn., and would pass
through the country bordering the Arkansas River, which can not be
surpassed for fertility.--_Marcy's Red River Exploration_.

The route thus described lies through the following counties, and
attention is specially directed to their several products in 1858:--

Acres
County White Slave Corn Wheat Cotton Sug. Misc'l Total.

Bowie 2,077 2,321 10,392 1,421 8,240 23 3,232 23,308
Cass 6,112 4,816 28,474 5,552 20,168 36 4,368 58,508
Titus 6,025 1,891 18,987 2,272 9,872 92 6,227 36,450
Upshur 5,999 2,801 22,515 3,092 16,692 45 3,122 46,065
Wood 3,254 733 8,336 1,090 3,194 31 1,841 14,501
Van Zandt 2,548 242 6,504 837 1,213 8 596 8,160
Henderson 2,758 827 8,470 845 4,768 70 908 15,061
Navarro 2,885 1,579 10,531 2,785 4,678 127 2,609