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    The WPA Guide to Louisiana: The Pelican State
    The WPA Guide to Louisiana: The Pelican State
    The WPA Guide to Louisiana: The Pelican State
    Ebook1,500 pages20 hours

    The WPA Guide to Louisiana: The Pelican State

    By Federal Writers' Project

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    During the 1930s in the United States, the Works Progress Administration developed the Federal Writers’ Project to support writers and artists while making a national effort to document the country’s shared history and culture. The American Guide series consists of individual guides to each of the states. Little-known authorsmany of whom would later become celebrated literary figureswere commissioned to write these important books. John Steinbeck, Saul Bellow, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ralph Ellison are among the more than 6,000 writers, editors, historians, and researchers who documented this celebration of local histories. Photographs, drawings, driving tours, detailed descriptions of towns, and rich cultural details exhibit each state’s unique flavor.

    The WPA Guide to Louisiana features a state influenced greatly by both Cajun and Southern cultures, as seen in the excellent photography and the chapter focused solely on traditional Louisiana cuisine. From Acadiana to the northern Sportsmans’ Paradise, this guide takes the reader on a journey across the swamplands of the Pelican State with several driving tours and special essays on the rich histories of Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTrinity University Press
    Release dateOct 31, 2013
    ISBN9781595342164
    The WPA Guide to Louisiana: The Pelican State

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      The WPA Guide to Louisiana - Federal Writers' Project

      PART I

      Louisiana: Past and Present

      An Introduction to Louisiana

      IF you will look at a map you will see that Louisiana resembles a boot with its frayed toe dipping into the Gulf of Mexico. The State is bounded on the east by Mississippi, on the north by Arkansas, and on the west by Texas. The Mississippi River flows between Mississippi and Louisiana for half the length of the State and then passes entirely into Louisiana. The vast delta and the spreading mouth of the great stream lie wholly within the State.

      North and South Louisiana are entirely unlike. Shreveport, the second largest city resembles Dallas, Texas more than it does New Orleans; and the countryside with its rolling hills and pine and hardwood forests resembles Arkansas. The eastern portion of north Louisiana takes on the color of the Mississippi River and the traveler finds cotton plantations and stately houses standing in groves of trees. Monroe is the largest city of this section.

      Alexandria, a thriving town in the center of the State, is distinctly American; yet only seventy miles west is Natchitoches the oldest town in the State. Natchitoches, which was founded in 1714, four full years before New Orleans, has a flavor undeniably French. It was first a fort on the road which led from Mexico to the Mississippi. One of the antique iron crosses in the cemetery tells of an unknown Spanish lady who died on that road just at the beginning of the eighteenth century. This is a rich cotton-growing country and there are many plantations along Red River and Cane River.

      In Louisiana the traveler must remember that old towns and old houses will always be found near a river, or bayou, as water was the chief means of transportation in the early days. Modern highways make traveling easier, but those who wish to visit older places must take the less frequented roads.

      One might almost say that the northern half of Louisiana is American and the southern half is French. This is not entirely true, of course, but it gives you the idea. French influence is felt throughout the State. The counties are called parishes once an ecclesiastical term, and many parishes are named for saints.

      South Louisiana takes its character from the French-speaking people who settled the vast, wet terrain, and who in the eighteenth century penetrated its rivers and bayous to make homes for themselves in the jungle-like forests. This part of the State is a lush land of great fecundity.

      New Orleans, it must be remembered, was a French and Spanish city a century old before it became a part of the United States. It stood on a peninsula bounded by the Mississippi River, Lake Pontchartrain and the reedy marshland which stretched south to the Gulf of Mexico. Founded by the French in 1718, it remained a possession of France until 1769 when it was taken under Spanish rule. In 1803 it became a part of the United States by right of the Louisiana Purchase. Even today French culture and French customs persist, though the city has spread out far beyond the boundaries of the Vieux Carré, the old town of iron lace, balconies, and courtyards. And the Creoles, proud white descendants of the original French and Spanish settlers, have given New Orleans a world-wide reputation for good food and drink, and good living.

      It is significant that the most colorful celebration is Mardi Gras. At Carnival time the city enters a season of gaiety with nightly balls and other festivities from Twelfth Night through Shrove Tuesday, a season which culminates with a week of street pageantry, and with general masking in the streets on Mardi Gras itself. Another colorful ceremony is that of the decoration of the graves on All Saints’ Day, when all of the cemeteries are filled with flowers and are crowded with people from early morning until nightfall.

      Mardi Gras and All Saints’ Day are observed throughout south and southwest Louisiana. In the Acadian country west of New Orleans, maskers ride about on horses on Shrove Tuesday and there are numerous dances and balls; and on All Saints’ Day even the humblest country cemetery is decorated with wreaths and bouquets.

      West of New Orleans, in the parishes which fringe the Gulf, one finds the Acadians, descendants of those families which were driven from Nova Scotia in 1755. They were country-bred people, and it is natural that they should have settled in that fertile land along Bayou Teche. The Cajuns, as they are nicknamed, are, like the land, prolific. They remain to a large extent an agricultural people, and they still speak French. There are Negroes in the Teche country who can speak no English, having been born and brought up among the French-speaking Acadians.

      The Teche country is as beautiful as any in the State. Winding roads follow winding bayous, and old white columned plantation houses slumber toward dissolution at the ends of avenues of trees. The rich black earth is renewed to fertility each year by the thousands of Negro laborers who work in the sugar cane fields. As one rides along the roads one can see at intervals, large sugar mills standing like islands in a sea of waving green cane.

      In this peaceful country, huge live oak trees are draped with Spanish moss, and the bayous are covered with purple water hyacinths. Magnolia trees flaunt their large white flowers, and the cypress grows in water, surrounded by its upturned roots, or knees, as they are called. There are birds and bees in every thicket, and the streams are full of crawfish. Turtles sun themselves on logs. In the swamps the bull frogs bellow all night, and the trilling of the tree frogs sounds like thousands of tiny shrill bells all ringing together.

      The people are friendly and pleasant. Families are large and the aunts, uncles, and cousins are legion. Names are musical, and nicknames are frequently quaint and amusing. Life passes placidly and people still retain their old customs and the old civilities.

      Lafayette is the largest town in the Acadian country. Every Cajun knows the folk song Allons à Lafayette. Dancing is the most popular pastime. Country dances are called Fais-dodo literally go to sleep—or an all night party.

      In the neighborhood of Opelousas one still finds hundreds of buggies and other horse-drawn vehicles.

      New Iberia is another pleasant Louisiana town, where there are numerous fine old houses, and there life seems easy and good. Near New Iberia is Avery Island with its bird sanctuary and with its colony of egrets.

      The character of this country is changing, however, and will continue to change as the oil industry penetrates further and further into the marshes each year. Hundreds of oil wells have been drilled, and thousands of silvery oil tanks are appearing. As one goes westward the oil activity increases, and towns become more and more American. Lake Charles is an interesting combination of Louisiana and the West.

      Two more sections of the State must be mentioned: the country which lies directly north and that which lies directly south of New Orleans. North of New Orleans, across Lake Pontchartrain, is a great pine forest, with white sandy-bottomed rivers and many health-giving springs. St. Tammany Parish is noted for its Ozone Belt where there are health resorts and where many New Orleanians have country homes. Here one finds white people predominating—unlike the cane and cotton growing land along the Mississippi—and truck farms replace plantations. Strawberries are a large crop and there are groves of tung-oil trees. Going further to the north and west, the traveler finds Baton Rouge, the State capital, a modern city deriving its wealth in part from the oil refineries near by. Here also is Louisiana State University. Baton Rouge was much in the nation’s headlines during the lifetime of Huey P. Long, that fiery and picturesque figure who dominated Louisiana for the five years before his death in 1935. The visitor is usually interested in the towering Capitol which is still called Huey’s Monument, as he lies buried before its doors.

      North of Baton Rouge are two of the State’s most beautiful parishes: East and West Feliciana. These are English-speaking parishes in that they were settled by English families at the time of the American Revolution; families who came here while this happy land was still Spanish territory. St. Francisville has many plantation houses, and others are hidden on unfrequented roads.

      The last section of Louisiana which can be mentioned in this brief summing up is that strange land of marsh and islands which lies south of New Orleans. Within a few miles of the city the traveler enters a primitive country of shrimpers and fishermen, who live as simply as their grandfathers did. Here are communities of men and women who are descendants of Lafitte’s smugglers and pirates, men in whose veins flows the blood of many nations. The salt marshes conceal the houses of hundreds of muskrat trappers, for Louisiana is one of the richest fur-bearing States in the union. Here, too, live the fishermen whose haul of fish, shrimp, crabs, and oysters supply the city of New Orleans and many other parts of the United States.

      This is known as the Barataria section, and is a sea marsh stretching some sixty miles southward to the Gulf. And beyond lies a bright archipelago of tropical islands, where few men live and where both sea and sky are filled with seagulls, terns, and pelicans, and where life goes on as it has done from time immemorial.

      Natural Setting

      LOUISIANA, shaped like a boot, with the toe pointing eastward, lies roughly between parallels 29° and 33° N. and meridians 89° and 94° W. and is bounded on the north by Arkansas, on the east by Mississippi, on the west by Texas, and on the south by the Gulf of Mexico. Somewhat larger than New York, the State has an area of 50,820 square miles, of which 7,409 are water.

      Lying wholly within the Gulf Coastal Plain, Louisiana is the only State which extends in part over three major sections of that physiographic province: the East Gulf Coastal Plain, the Mississippi Alluvial Plain, and the West Gulf Coastal Plain. The more elevated areas east and west of the Alluvial Plain are known as the Upland Districts and consist of three main divisions: the Uplands of the Florida Parishes, north of Lake Pontchartrain and east of the Mississippi; the West Louisiana Uplands, west of the Red and Calcasieu Rivers; and the North Louisiana Uplands, a wedge-shaped area lying roughly between the Red and Ouachita Rivers. Near the coast, the delta formations of the Alluvial Plain lying east of Vermilion Bay and the low formations of the West Gulf Coastal Plain (Cameron-Vermilion Marshes or Wet Prairies) make up the Coastal-Delta Section. The higher arable portions of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain and the valleys of the Red and Ouachita Rivers are known as the Valley Lands.

      The physiographic features of the State consist of pine hills, bluffs, prairies, coastal marshes, and alluvial plains. Rolling hill country, studded with longleaf and shortleaf pine, is found in each of the upland regions. Ranging in elevation from 100 to 300 feet in the southernmost uplands, the hills rise to a maximum of a little more than 400 feet near the Arkansas boundary. Except for conspicuous differences of elevation at successive terraces, or where the hills border valleys, the uplands slope gently toward the coast, the average incline being about two feet to the mile. Two high points west of the Mississippi rise above 400 feet: the Kisatchie Hills on the Natchitoches-Vernon Parish line and an area in the southern part of Claiborne Parish. Picturesque hills, bluffs, and ravines occur along the streams and valleys, the most notable being Grand Écore Bluff in Natchitoches Parish, the Tunica Hills in West Feliciana Parish, and the gorges known as Fluker’s Cave and Fricke’s Cave in St. Helena and Washington Parishes.

      Bluffs border the Mississippi Alluvial Plain to the east and west of the river. On the east side the bluffs rise to an elevation of over 300 feet in the Tunica Hills east of Angola and end somewhat south of Baton Rouge at an elevation only slightly above the valley floor. West of the Alluvial Plain a lower chain of bluffs extends in a broken line from Oak Grove to Lafayette. The bluff lands slope away from the Mississippi Valley on each side, their drainage being away from the river.

      The prairie lands in southwest Louisiana make up a flat sloping plain declining in elevation from 60 feet near Mamou to sea level at White Lake, the descent averaging a foot to the mile. There are no pronounced relief features.

      A wide fringe of coastal marshes extends along the 1,500-mile coast line of Louisiana. Close growths of sedge, grass, and rushes make up a flat treeless plain dotted with thousands of shallow salt water lakes and lagoons. Except where the delta is encroaching on the sea, the marshes are bordered on the seaward side by barrier beaches, composed mainly of fine sand, which rise to a crest and support groves of live oak on their inner slopes. Sand and shell ridges, sometimes rising several feet above the general level, are to be found throughout the marshes. Called chênières because of the oak groves usually found growing on them, they represent former barrier beaches. Good examples are Grand Chênière and Pecan Island in southwest Louisiana. Drainage of the marsh areas is effected by sloughs and drainage bayous. In the coastal region proper the marshes are generally salt or brackish, the transition from fresh water being very gradual.

      In addition to the chênières, the land islands of Louisiana are positive topographic features of great importance both to topographers and geologists because they represent the surface expression of underlying salt masses. These land islands are usually a mile or more in diameter and rise to a maximum height of 196 feet (Avery Island) above the general level of the surrounding marshes.

      In southwestern Louisiana, extending along a line bearing S. 49° E. from a place ten miles west of New Iberia to the mouth of Atchafalaya River, are five distinct surface mounds known as the Five Islands of Louisiana: Jefferson Island, Avery Island, Weeks Island, Côte Blanche, and Belle Isle.

      The Mississippi Alluvial Plain extends southward along the river in a broad belt with an average width of about 50 miles. Narrow in the north, it widens considerably below Baton Rouge, where it swings southeastward to form the delta. From the Arkansas Line, where the elevation is 115 feet, the flood plain slopes gradually to sea level at the Gulf of Mexico, the drop in the river over its 569-mile course through the State being about 2½ inches to the mile. The variations in the topography of the Alluvial Plain consist mainly of a series of ridges and basins. Along the main river and its distributaries, or natural outlets, the ridges are termed natural levees. The arable lands of the high elevation sloping away from the river compose the frontlands, the relief of which is altered in many places by meanders, cutoffs, and oxbow lakes. The intervening area between the frontlands and the bordering swamps is known as the backlands, a region of fine silt and clay. When the level of the backlands dips below the mean water table, swamps are found. They vary from shallow swamps, characterized by a variety of hardwoods, to deeper, more permanent, cypress-tupelo swamps. Since the drainage in the Alluvial Plain is away from the master streams, the swamps, as a rule, do not drain into the Mississippi River, but serve merely as catch-basins for overflow waters and rainfall. In the delta proper, there are, in addition to the swamps, wide expanses of treeless water areas—marshes, lagoons, and lakes.

      The most important rivers in the State are the Mississippi, Red, Ouachita, Sabine, and Pearl. A peculiar feature of many streams is the fact that they run upon a higher elevation than their flood plains. This is especially true of the Mississippi, which meanders through Louisiana between ridges built up by successive depositions of silt. The river is of little value, therefore, as a drainage channel for the State, its only tributary on the west being Red River, and on the east, Bayou Sara and Thompson’s Creek. Were it not for a continuous line of levees, one-third of the total area of the State would be flooded by the Mississippi whenever bankfull stage was exceeded.

      Numerous bayous—flood distributaries and drainage streams for swamps—make up a drainage network for the State. Of these, Teche, Macon, Lafourche, and Bœuf are the largest. The bayous, in most instances, are distributaries rather than tributaries of streams, and as such act as auxiliary outlets. Those found in the catch-basin swamps along the Mississippi and in the Tensas River and Lake des Allemands areas serve as drainage outlets for overflow waters.

      Three classes of lakes occur. Coastal lagoons, existing as arms of the sea isolated behind barrier beaches or surrounded by deltaic ridges, are found in the delta. Lying at sea level, they have a slight tidal action, although storms and varying winds cause greater rises and falls than the regular tides. Barataria Bay and Lakes Pontchartrain, Maurepas, and Salvador are typical of such lagoons. Oxbow lakes, resulting from cutoff meanders of the Mississippi River, are found throughout the Alluvial Plain. Their characteristic shape is that of a crescent, and their width that of the river from which they were cut off. The lakes found in the Red River Valley, of which Caddo, Bistineau, and Black are typical, were formed as a result of the damming of Red River by the Great Raft. Their level is dependent now upon that of Red River, high water resulting in a flooding of the lakes by backwater.

      CLIMATE

      Louisiana has a semitropical climate that is remarkably equable over large areas. Variations in daily temperature are determined by soil differences, distance from the Gulf of Mexico, and, to a slight degree, by differences in elevation.

      The mean temperature for the State as a whole, based on the records of 48 years, is 67.4°; for northern Louisiana, 65.2°; and for southern Louisiana, where prevailing southerly winds and a network of bays, bayous, and lakes are moderating influences, 68.2°. January is the coldest month, with an average of 53.2° in the southern section and 48.3° in the northern section, while July and August are the warmest, with temperatures averaging approximately 82° in both northern and southern sections. There is, however, a greater daily fluctuation in the northern section in summer, the days being hotter and the nights cooler. At Shreveport a maximum of 100°, or higher, has been recorded in 40 out of 65 years; in New Orleans, 100°, or higher, has been recorded only 14 times in 69 years. Temperatures of 10°, or lower, have occurred in 10 years out of 65 at Shreveport; at New Orleans the temperature has been 20°, or lower, 14 times in 69 years.

      High winds, preceding areas of high barometric pressure, are experienced every winter. These high pressure areas, which move into Louisiana from the northwest, rotate in a clockwise direction, and, as the centers usually pass to the northward of most points in Louisiana, the wind generally shifts from the south by way of west to the north. As the fall in temperature is most noticeable when the wind shifts to the northwest, the storms are commonly called northwesters.

      Snow is rare in southern Louisiana, especially near the coast, but occasional falls are recorded in the northern part of the State. Whenever snow falls in the southern section it usually amounts to little more than a few flurries with the flakes melting as they touch the ground. In the northern section snow falls on an average of about once a year, the annual unmelted fall ranging from about 1 inch in central Louisiana to 3.3 near the northern border.

      The average rainfall for the State over a 48-year period is 55.45 inches. The mean precipitation at New Orleans is 59.3 inches a year; at Shreveport, 43.37 inches. The most serious long-period drought, mainly affecting north Louisiana, extended from June to November 1924, with 5.69 inches or only about one-fourth the normal for the period, being recorded. Droughts rarely occur in southern Louisiana. Most of the heavy rainfalls occur during the warm season as the result of thunderstorms and tropical cyclones.

      At long intervals strong cyclonic winds, accompanied by high tides and torrential rains, occur in connection with the tropical storms that visit the Gulf Coast from July through September or early October. These storms, which generally approach from the southwest, usually strike some part of the Louisiana coast about every 4 or 5 years; but dangerous storms, with winds reaching velocities of 100 miles an hour, occur in the State only about once in 10 years.

      Certain characteristics of these tropical cyclones should be known to visitors of the coastal area. Covering an area some 200 to 300 miles in diameter, the storms rotate in a counter-clockwise direction. The wind to the right of the storm center moves in the same general direction as the storm center itself, and as the forward speed of the storm as a whole is about 12 to 15 miles an hour, it may blow some 25 to 30 miles an hour stronger on the right side of the storm than on the left. As these high winds move over the Gulf they develop swells of great size and length. The largest waves, ranging from 20 to 50 feet in height, depending upon the velocity of the wind, form to the right of the storm center. They travel at a speed of more than 40 miles an hour, about three times the speed of the storm center, and approach the coast as great swells far in advance of the storm and even against adverse winds.

      A continued increase in the size of the swells, accompanied by a persistent rise in the tide for two or more days, with little or no fall at the normal hour, are the first signs of an approaching hurricane. Since the highest storm tide is produced to the right of the storm center, and since to the left of the storm there is no further rise for as much as 36 hours before the cyclone moves inland, it is possible to predict, with a fair degree of accuracy, the point at which the tropical disturbance will strike the coast. The storm centers tend to pass to the east of the mouth of the Mississippi River, and New Orleans and the Louisiana coast are thus more frequently within the less violent left-hand half of tropical storms.

      A characteristic of hurricane winds is their irregular, gusty nature. An observer on the right hand front of the storm center notes that the wind shifts from a northerly to a southerly direction by way of east; on the left side the shift is by way of west. Easterly winds of great velocity, accompanied by heavy rains, immediately precede the most dangerous period of the storm.

      GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY

      Geologically considered, Louisiana as it appears today is a young area. Much of it consists of marine and alluvial sediments deposited after the principal structural features of surrounding regions had assumed their final form. Subsidence of the original structures was so great that few if any of the basic formations are visible. Most of such rocks as appear on the surface, as well as the cores brought up in the drilling of oil wells, show that the structures, even at great depths, are comparatively recent ones. Most observable evidence belongs to the latter part of the Mesozoic era and to the Cenozoic era, the final and shortest major unit in geologic time.

      Because the younger rocks conceal the older record, the history in the earlier eras of what is now Louisiana can be known only by inference from the evidence of adjacent States. It is certain, however, that this area had a long and varied history preceding the more recent era.

      A long interval elapsed between the closing of the Mesozoic era and the accumulation of the earliest Tertiary deposits of Cenozoic age in Louisiana. Where wells have been drilled, it has been shown that the basal Tertiary lies on an eroded surface where strata ranging in age from late upper Cretaceous to early Comanchean of the lower Cretaceous have been truncated, or cut across, to form the floor on which deposits of later age were built up.

      The dawn of Tertiary times in Louisiana showed this region occupying part of a large trough flooded by water and known as the Mississippi Embayment. Sedimentation and uplift contracted and ultimately obliterated the depressed area and resulted in continued and widespread advances and retreats of the invading Gulf waters.

      The existing faults, folds, and salt domes were formed immediately following the completion of Miocene deposits of the Tertiary beds. The Gulf then receded far beyond the present shore line, erosion intensified, and the Quaternary period began with the entire region covered with a mantle of Pleistocene sands and gravel. The succeeding Recent period has been occupied largely with the removal of this debris.

      The rocks exposed at the surface in Louisiana consist almost entirely of clay, sand, and marl beds. These materials, except for the flood-plain deposits along present-day streams, were laid down in the Gulf of Mexico or near gulf level, when that body of water was much larger than it is now and covered broad portions of the Gulf coastal States. Some of the beds represent ancient deltas of the Mississippi River and of other large streams of the region; others represent deposits in marine water offshore from the ancient deltas.

      The relationship and distribution of the beds indicate a progressive but gradual retreat of the Gulf and an accompanying rise of the northern part of the State. As the beds became dry land and rose higher and higher, stream erosion produced the hill lands. Due to these changes the oldest beds are found in the northern part of the State, with overlying and progressively younger beds southward. The youngest deposits are found along the coast and in the alluvial valleys of the present streams.

      The table on the following page gives a generalized section of the beds, or formations, at the surface in Louisiana and southern Arkansas. The columns at the left show the intervals of geologic time during which the beds formed; the right-hand column gives the geological names of the rock units. These units range in thickness from twenty or thirty feet to several thousand feet.

      The chief structural features of the Louisiana geologic formations are the Sabine uplift, a prominent and broad uplift centering in northwestern Louisiana; the Monroe uplift, a similar structure in northeastern Louisiana; the Angelina-Caldwell flexure, a fold, or line of weakness dating from Tertiary times, extending from Sabine Parish across north-central Louisiana to Caldwell Parish; the Mobile-Tunica flexure, a fold of rather recent formation, extending from near Mobile Bay, Alabama, eastward to the Tunica Hills of the northern Feliciana Parishes of Louisiana; 11 interior salt domes in north Louisiana; and not less than 100 salt domes in the coastal area.

      During the Cretaceous period near the close of the Mesozoic era, strata consisting of hard crystalline limestone, gypsum, salt, sulphur, and marls were deposited at the bottom of the inland sea in an area comprising a large part of Louisiana. These strata were nearly always accompanied by salt beds, which, when exposed by erosion, were bare of vegetation. The old salt works of Webster, Bienville, and Winn Parishes are proof of this; and enormous deposits of nearly pure salt were discovered in the 11 salt domes of that section.

      The great pressure of the thick Tertiary and Quaternary deposits subsequently laid down along the coast is believed to have been a factor in driving upward the great columns of rock salt which form the numerous salt domes of the Louisiana coastal area. The most widely accepted theory is that a prehistoric salt bed, similar to that of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, has been depressed and buried under the enormous accumulation, during millions of years, of the alluvial deposits of the Mississippi River. The great pressure of this deposit, which is estimated to be from 5 to 6 miles in depth, has caused the salt to become plastic and to seek relief by flowing upward through the surrounding rocks. In a few cases, the rising salt columns have perforated the entire 25,000 or more feet of superimposed strata; these outcrops, each usually with an overlying crust, are known as the Five Islands, the salt mines of which produce most of Louisiana’s rock salt.

      OBSERVABLE SURFACE FORMATIONS IN LOUISIANA

      Salt domes, or plugs, are an important element in the origin of the south Louisiana oil fields. The oil was formed in the bedded rocks as they were deposited, and finally accumulated in the porous and permeable sand layers. As a salt plug moved upward through the bedded rocks, it arched the beds above into dome-shaped structures, and where it cut through these beds they remained up-arched against the flank of the salt. If the domed beds or the beds abutting against the salt were oil-bearing sands, the oil would migrate up the slope of the beds and accumulate in the highest part of the dome above the salt, or in the upper end of the bed, against the side of the salt. In these places it would remain trapped until tapped by wells.

      The salt core is sometimes topped with a cap, from a few feet to several hundred feet in thickness, consisting of various minerals, or combinations of minerals, such as limestone, gypsum, anhydrite, sulphur, galena, sphalerite, pyrite, and petroleum. Besides petroleum, the accompanying sandy strata contain vast quantities of natural gas.

      The majority of the intruded salt masses have no surface expression, but a few have superficially manifested themselves by sunken areas. The absence of a surface expression has been the motivating reason for the rapid development and application of a new science, geophysical prospecting, which not only detects but measures and determines the shape, size, and location of these masses even when buried under thousands of feet of sediment and water.

      On the flanks of the Sabine uplift, in northern Louisiana, are some oil pools localized chiefly by anticlinal structure, including high spots on the uplift and independent domes and anticlines grouped around it. Areal limitations of sand bodies and variation in permeability of reservoir rock, however, have been factors in determining the positions and extent of most of the pools of this district.

      The powerful forces which produced the Sabine uplift caused many fractures and folds and gave north Louisiana the basis for its future drainage system. Similar forces produced the Monroe uplift in the northeastern part of the State, the two areas being separated by the immense Ouachita-Mississippi Basin. Extensive shallow swamps and coastal marshes in this basin furnished ideal conditions for preserving forest remains and other vegetable debris, which are represented today by the lignite deposits of north Louisiana.

      Northwestern Louisiana slowly emerged, and rivers and creeks began sculpturing a topography similar to that of the present day. But again the scene changed, and another submergence took place. Muddy, shallow seas prevailed, and a heavy deposit of gray clays was placed over the former dry land. These clays rest upon the deeply eroded surfaces of the Wilcox, Claiborne, and Cockfield formations. They are of great economic importance, being the water-carrying beds for the springs and wells of north Louisiana. They enter into the composition of the soils of the creek bottoms, and the water coming from them is remarkably pure.

      Deposits known as the Jackson formation rest upon the Cockfield formation. Unlike the deposits mentioned above, which have a dip conforming to the Sabine uplift, the Jackson strata have a general southward dip conforming to the Angelina-Caldwell flexure. They run in a band about 30 miles wide across the southern portion of the hills of north Louisiana and outcrop in many places, frequently protruding like islands, especially along their northern boundary, through a thick cover of red, sandy clay formed later. The Jackson strata make up calcareous soils, which consist for the most part of tough, yellow, fossil-bearing marls grading into gray clays. Frequently, white and yellow limestone boulders are scattered over the outcrops; more rarely, limestone ledges a few feet in thickness cap the hills. Fossil bones of the Zeuglodon, a whalelike mammal, have been found, and the formation is considered one of the best for the collection of upper Eocene fossils. Fossil Foraminifera are numerous both in kind and number.

      The Vicksburg Oligocene deposits overlie the Jackson, but there is no difference in the topography of the territory they occupy, nor in their vegetation. They consist of yellow fossil-bearing marls and exhibit the same black prairies, but their fossils show them to belong to a later geological horizon.

      South of the Vicksburg deposits are outcrops of the Catahoula formation, which form a prominent hilly belt across the State in the parishes of Vernon, Sabine, Natchitoches, Grant, La Salle, and Catahoula, terminating at Sicily Island. The belt is made up of sandstones, clay stones, and massive clays, which overtop the southern border of the Vicksburg marls. The area consists of steep hills and bluffs which frequently rise more than 150 feet above the surrounding country. The former plain structure has been preserved, however, as a plateau, in which the rivers have cut wide valleys with steep walls, and the tributaries, deep ravines.

      Above the Catahoula formation, and completing the Miocene deposits, lie the Fleming clays and sands. The term Fleming at one time was used to refer to the 5,000 to 8,000 feet of sediments lying between the Citronelle gravels of the Pleistocene and the Discorbis zone of the Miocene. Lately Fleming is being used to name the clays and sands between the Discorbis zone and the Pliocene. As the study of microfauna and microfossils has progressed, tentative zones have been set up within the Fleming, such as the Potamides matsoni and Rangia johnsoni zones. The Fleming covers southern Louisiana; its northern boundary being a curve extending through northern Calcasieu, southern Beauregard, central Allen and Evangeline, southern St. Landry, central Pointe Coupée, northern Livingston, and southern Tangipahoa and St. Tammany Parishes.

      Little is known about the Pliocene, which lies between the Fleming and the Pleistocene. Interpretation is rendered difficult because the only described Pliocene microfauna available for correlation is a small one from the comparatively thin Caloosahatchee marl of southern Florida. Besides this, most of the knowledge of the Pliocene sediments of Louisiana comes from wells drilled on the piercement type domes, where the section is only partially represented. The horizon of the Pliocene covers southern Louisiana, and extends northward to end in a slanting line which cuts across southern Beauregard, Allen and Evangeline, central St. Landry and Pointe Coupée, southern West and East Feliciana, central St. Helena, northern Tangipahoa, and central Washington Parishes.

      Pleistocene sands and gravels, known as the Drift, cover a vast surface area of the State. Strata are found at Avery Island overlying the salt beds and underlying the Bluff strata. Excavations have revealed fossilized bones and some nearly complete skeletons of species of mastodon, elephant, horse, and species of mylodon and megalonyx (giant sloths). Rising northward, the Drift becomes more or less abundant through the uplands of the State. It spreads a thin sheet over extreme north Louisiana, forms immense deposits centrally, and thins out again over the Catahoula deposits. Silicified corals, Favosites, and Cyatho-phyllum have been found among these gravels north of Alexandria.

      Plant fossils are abundant in several of the Louisiana formations; the identifications include various extinct species of ferns, grasses, sedges, walnuts, oaks, elms, mulberries, figs, magnolias, laurels, hollies, heaths, dogwoods, and olives.

      Blue clay, calcareous silts, and brown loams, deposited in or bordering the large bottoms during the Recent period by streams which immediately antedate those of the present time, may be classified together as the Port Hudson-Beaumont formations. Strictly speaking, they are not all alluvial. The clays were deposited as thick strata in sluggish, shallow estuaries running well up to Cairo, Illinois, along the Mississippi and up to Shreveport along Red River Valley. The width of the ancient Mississippi flood plain extended almost to Monroe on the west and to Vicksburg on the east. At the present day, in spite of the fact that the rivers have been depositing their alluvium on top of the blue clay, large areas are still uncovered. When cultivated, these clays give rise to the famous buckshot soils.

      The formation of Louisiana’s bluffs accounts for the high uplands, 10 to 15 miles in width, which wall the Mississippi River. During the Pleistocene there were four epochs of alluvation, separated by distinct erosional intervals occurring in the Deltaic plain region of Louisiana. The deposits of this period have been correlated with interglacial stages, while the erosional intervals coincide with glacial advances. These four alluvial surfaces, called Terrace, are named Prairie, Montgomery, Bently, and Williana.

      Each terrace starts as a thin layer of silt deposited along the banks in the back reaches of streams, but as the streams advance toward the coast the deposit becomes thicker and broader until it is a wide seaward-sloping surface, which forms a distinctive topographic belt more or less paralleling the alignment of the present coastal marshes. The older surfaces, such as the Bently and Williana, are more steeply inclined than the younger surfaces, which indicates continual regional tilting. This is partially due to the localized uplift along the Mobile-Tunica flexure.

      A detailed study of the lower terraces has yet to be undertaken, and just how rich they may be in fossils is not known. The Prairie, or youngest terrace, however, is represented by buckshot clay, a dark colored, gummy soil containing calcareous and ferruginous concretions, fossil woods of oak, bamboo, hard pine, mulberry, hickory, cypress, persimmon, tulip, poplar, elm, and such northern species as white spruce, larch, and white cedar; fossil fruits and seeds of the buttercup, rose, grape, carrot, honeysuckle, and plantain; and fossilized bones of the tapir, elephant, and peccary.

      The limits of the Deltaic plain are very irregular, and it is practically impossible to give definite boundaries. This is partly due to the fact that bounding distributaries were inconsistent in position and subject to abandonment, bifurcation, and sudden relegation to an interior position. Roughly, the delta spread between the Pearl and Sabine Rivers. Its northern boundary started in northern Calcasieu Parish; swept sharply north into southern Vernon and Rapides and Central Avoyelles Parishes; then dropped again to enter central Pointe Coupée, East and West Feliciana and St. Helena Parishes; and finally dropped still farther south to cross central Tangipahoa and St. Tammany Parishes.

      In the marshes of the southern part of the State, the floods and tides of the Recent period have deposited mud, clay, and sand, with fossil shells similar to those of living species, on top of the blue clay of the Beaumont formation. These marshes are still in the process of formation and are overflowed daily by the tides. Near the rivers and along the banks of bayous that represent former river beds, the alluvium brought down by the floods has been piled upon this clay as deltaic fingers, elevating the adjacent surfaces above the level of the marshes and making arable land. In addition, wave-built barrier beaches are forming along the coast. Sand dunes rise along the crests of these beaches wherever they are exposed to the prevailing winds.

      In Louisiana, except for the alluvial deposits at the mouth of the Mississippi, the shore line is receding at a rate of from 6 to 125 feet a year, irrespective of hurricanes, which can cause a retreat of several hundred feet in a few hours. Two factors cause this recession: (1) the regional tilting brought on by the weight of the growing Mississippi delta, which causes the lands about it to dip more sharply and become submerged; (2) the ease with which the low-lying shore is eroded, as is shown by the greater depth of the recession on those portions of the shore line which are more exposed to the prevailing winds and waves. Indeed, so noticeable and rapid has been the subsidence of the mainland, that many of the old plantations have become a region fit only for trapping, hunting and fishing.

      Except in the delta, the shore line of southern Louisiana is generally sandy; there are numerous sand and shell ridges extending for miles parallel to the shore either in close proximity to the Gulf or some distance inland. Because of the recession of the coast line, similar ridges are now developing along the Gulf border, just above and below mean tide. Some distance out in the Gulf the same force is at work making the Sabine Shoals. Isle Dernière and Timbalier, Ship, Cat, and Chandeleur Islands will eventually become island ridges like Pecan Island and Grand Chênière in southwest Louisiana or like the less elevated and less conspicuous sand and shell ridges that traverse Orleans Parish near the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain.

      Equally interesting in this portion of the State are the numerous shallow lakes and bays. A complete series of beds showing a transition from purely salt to brackish, or even fresh-water, characterizes the submerged areas. The strictly marine Fulgur, Natica, and Arca shells give place successively to brackish water oysters and Mactra, Rangia, and fresh-water Unio, indicating that the land area of this part of Louisiana, during recent geological periods, has passed through a succession of stages similar to that in existence today. A number of extensive swamp areas have the appearance of being old lake beds from which the waters are nearly drained off. The water and oil wells of the region seldom fail to reveal masses of Rangia shells at some depth.

      In some places there has been a continual loading and consequent depression of the Gulf’s border, giving rise to uplifts in adjacent regions. The shifting of the mouth of the river and the resulting change of loading point has brought about a shifting of regions of depression and upheaval. If the region of uplift is some distance from the coast, the uplifting produces shallow sounds, bays, or lakes, according to its extent. These, when finally filled with clays derived from the sediments of inflowing rivers, pass from the sea-marsh stage into prairies.

      NATURAL RESOURCES AND CONSERVATION

      An unusual combination of diversified natural resources occurs in Louisiana. Rich alluvial soils and a favorable climate produce a great variety of agricultural products and valuable forests; salt, sulphur, oil, and natural gas are found in widespread areas; lakes, rivers, and the Gulf provide fresh-water fish and sea food, as well as sand, gravel, and shells; game and fur-bearing animals abound.

      Extremely fertile soils are the State’s basic resource. In addition to their abundance of plant food, most Louisiana soils are warm and porous. As crop and timber lands, the heavy deposits of silt in the alluvial basins along the Mississippi River and other streams are among the best in the world. Next in soil value are the sands and sandy loams of the uplands. They produce a large part of the staple crops of the State. In all, approximately one-seventh of the land area—5,000,000 acres—is under cultivation.

      Louisiana’s land conservation program is concerned with protection against overflow of land in constant use. Comprehensive waterway control plans now in process of completion will assure this. Flood control acts passed by Congress in 1928 and 1936 provide for protection for the greater part of the eastern half of the State from maximum flood levels in the Mississippi. Floodways providing for the diversion of high water whenever the levee system is threatened have been constructed in the Tensas basin in northeastern Louisiana and in the Atchafalaya basin in south-central Louisiana; the Bonnet Carré Spillway just above New Orleans makes possible the diversion of water from the Mississippi to the Gulf by way of Lake Pontchartrain.

      The principal mineral resources are salt, sulphur, petroleum, and natural gas. Of the approximately 100 salt dome formations so far discovered, most are located in the southern part of the State. The largest deposits are under the Five Islands, which are actually hills, in St. Mary, Iberia, and Vermilion Parishes. Oil in commercial quantities has come from nearly half of them. The largest sulphur deposits are at Grande Écaille, 45 miles south of New Orleans, and at Jefferson Island. Sulphur is also found in salt domes in Iberia, Assumption, Cameron, Iberville, Lafourche, St. Mary, Terrebonne, and Plaquemines Parishes. In Winn and Evangeline Parishes the cap rock of the salt domes is more than 90 per cent limestone. In 1937 the two open-pit quarries produced 408,433 tons of lime rock.

      The oil supplies lie chiefly in the northwestern part of the State, where they are found in extensive fields, and in the Gulf Coast region, where they occur principally in connection with salt domes. Among the most important oil fields in North Louisiana are Rodessa, Cotton Valley, Caddo-Pine Island, Shreveport, Lisbon, Haynesville, Homer, Urania, and Zwolle. The principal south Louisiana oil fields are Jennings, Lafitte, Iowa, Iberia, White Castle, Caillou Island, Ville Platte, Charenton, East Hackberry, Tepetate, Jeanerette, and Bosco.

      The greatest natural gas field is in the northeastern section, including the parishes of Ouachita, Union, Morehouse, Richland, and East and West Carroll. The proven areas are chiefly in three distinct districts: the largest north of Monroe, the others in Richland Parish and along the East and West Carroll Parish line.

      The State has given much attention to the conservation of oil and gas. There are laws for the protection of oil pools from wasteful or destructive drilling methods and for the prevention of waste in the production of natural gas.

      Louisiana’s scenic beauty lies chiefly in its vegetation and its bodies of water. Most of the State would lack picturesqueness without the conspicuous massing and intermingling of pine, cypress, magnolia, and live oak. Forests and plant areas achieve striking contrasts. This arises from the fact that in Louisiana a difference of a few feet in elevation often makes a great difference in the nature of the soil and its degree of moisture.

      There are about 150 species of trees in the State, including 15 species of oak, five of hickory, five of pine, several species of magnolia, ash, maple, elm, and willow, and one each of beech, yellow poplar, sycamore, cottonwood, sweet gum, hackberry, tupelo, upland black gum, and swamp black gum.

      The cypress, which grows most abundantly in swamps, achieves its most vivid effect on the borders of some of the lakes, especially near the coast. It flanks the shores in a continuous panel of deep green, shot with the gray of Spanish moss. Occasional ghost forests of towering cypresses, killed by the inroads of salt water, give a haunting touch to the mute wilderness. The cypress is readily distinguished by its feathery green foliage and out-flaring base. The roots push themselves above the water for air and are called knees. Tupelo gum, when the trees are bare, is often mistaken for cypress because it, too, grows abundantly in swamps and has an enlarged trunk. Its foliage, however, is entirely different.

      The live oak is indigenous to the coastal strip of Louisiana, occurring naturally as far north as the mouth of Red River. Transplanted trees thrive fairly well north of this, though never attaining as great a size as in southern Louisiana; here the live oak, hung with Spanish moss, is planted in avenues and groves on most plantations and grows wild in fringes along the low ridges, the higher banks of lakes and bayous, and some of the shell beaches of the coast. Natural groves on the higher alluvial deposits have a spectacular beauty marked by the pattern of light and shadows on the ground beneath the trees and among the trunks, branches, and crowns. The largest trees, some of which have diameters of more than six feet at the base and a spread of more than 200 feet, grow on open land.

      Several oaks in Louisiana rival the live oak in size and beauty. Although none has as great a spread, the height of most of them averages much more than that of the live oak. The most widely distributed of these is the water oak (Quercus nigra), which grows in any rich soil and is especially notable as a shade tree on lawns and streets. Its bark is smoother than that of the live oak, and the leaves less leathery but larger and often lobed at the apex, especially in new growth.

      The large-flowered magnolia, a native forest tree growing principally in the southern half of Louisiana, is transplanted in all parts of the State. Its natural situation is on rich, well-drained ridges in the lower districts and along the banks of streams in pine uplands, where it mingles with oak and hickory.

      Shade and ornamental trees, some European, some tropical, are most conspicuous in New Orleans and some other cities of the State. Camphor trees (Cinnamomum camphorum) are widely used as shade trees along the sidewalks of New Orleans; old, well-established trees can resist temperatures as low as 15° Fahrenheit, though the leaves freeze with that degree of cold. The tallowtree is a peculiar exotic growing in New Orleans. Varnish tree, or Firmania, is present in New Orleans as well as in Shreveport and other upland towns and cities. Ailanthus grows well in Shreveport and other places. The China tree is found throughout the State. Bananas grow very well at the Gulf Coast, but the leaves die with a killing frost. A native-grown stock of oranges has become hardy in extreme southern Louisiana and produces a commercially important crop. The bitter orange grows as an ornamental plant in many gardens. Oleanders and crape myrtles are widely grown, especially in the southern half of the State. Palms from many parts of the world have been planted successfully in New Orleans.

      More than half of the area of Louisiana is at present forest land. There are some virgin or nearly virgin stands, but most of the timber areas have been cut over and are in various stages of re-growth.

      The forests fall roughly into four major types: (1) shortleaf pine uplands; (2) slash and longleaf pine flats and hills; (3) hardwood forests in alluvial basins; (4) cypress and tupelo swamps. Each of the pine forest types occupies about 5,500,000 acres. The hardwood forests cover about 3,500,000 acres, and the cypress and tupelo swamps make up 2,500,000 acres.

      In the parishes of northwest Louisiana grow some of the finest stands of loblolly and shortleaf pine timber in the Nation; much of it is used in construction throughout the South. These species are also much used in pulpwood manufacture, and the center of Louisiana’s pulp and kraft paper industry is situated in this region.

      Hardwood is found principally in Red River Valley, in a broad belt along the Mississippi River almost to the Gulf, and in the adjoining basins of other streams. The more northern hardwood tracts are probably as rich in timber as the upland pine districts. Here, many million feet of hardwood, including oak, red gum, ash, and elm, are logged annually and shipped to the North and East for manufacture into furniture, interior trim, and various other items.

      Towards the south this hardwood belt gives way partly to extensive cypress swamps. Much of the timber in this area has been cut, and a great deal of the second growth is tupelo and other water-loving hardwoods.

      In the southern half of the State, on each side of the hardwood belt, are the longleaf and slash pine forests. Most of the virgin longleaf pine has been cut, but some reforestation is in progress.

      Forest conservation has made notable progress in Louisiana. The Department of Conservation maintains a successful forest fire patrol system in the pine regions, where fire is a constant menace. The Kisatchie National Forest, in four divisions in central Louisiana, embraces 900,000 acres. The State and several of the larger lumber companies have extensive reforestation areas in the pine districts. The Southern Forest Survey of the U. S. Forest Service has its headquarters in New Orleans, where are also located the offices of the largest of the Nation’s nine forest experiment stations. They carry on their work in co-operation with one another, with the State division of forestry, and with lumber companies.

      PLANT LIFE

      The most varied wild-flower display appears during the warmer months in the pine woods, where the ground is bright with deergrass, ground orchids, phlox, mints, asters, St. Johnswort, false foxgloves, wild peas, and stargrass. In spring, on the slopes and bottoms of the upland sections is an abundance of yellow jasmine, wild azalea, silverbell, dogwood, and redbud. The flowers of the crossvine and trumpetvine are the most conspicuous blooms in the wooded lowland districts.

      The fresh-water marshes sometimes have more flowers than the pinewoods, but their variety is not as great. Flowers of the wild mallow, or hibiscus, in white, and changing shades of rose and carmine, cover wide stretches. Blue pickerelweed, white arrowhead, irises, scattered spider lilies, masses of lavender water hyacinth, and occasional rafts of yellow pond lilies, and white water lilies intensify the color and luxuriance of the marshes. Here, in quiet shallow lakes, there are frequently rich growths of the native lotus, or water chinquapin, known in Louisiana as graines-a-volée.

      Although the introduced water hyacinth (Piaropus crassipes) produces a remarkable spectacle with its acres of lavender blossoms, it is often a serious impediment to navigation. Its floating leaves cover the shallow lakes and slow-flowing bayous with almost impenetrable masses, sometimes thick enough to bear a man of average weight. The water hyacinth cannot live in brackish water, and continued high tides cause sufficient salinity to kill it in some streams. Other waterways are cleared by means of special dredges or by spraying with a mixture of oil and soda.

      Irises in great abundance and variety of color grow in freshwater marshes and swampy areas; most abundant are the giant blue and the copper-colored. Many plants believed to be hybrids have flowers in different shades of wine purple; and there are also variations, including yellow sports, which cover a great range of colors.

      Spanish moss, or long moss (Tillandsia usneoides), grows profusely in southern Louisiana and more rarely in the northernmost part of the State. Common along water courses, it drapes the Gulf Coast cypresses and live oaks, and, less freely, pecans, elms, water oaks, and other trees. Spanish moss is not, botanically speaking, a moss, but a seed-producing plant of the pineapple family. It has minute, lily-like, straw-colored flowers, with correspondingly small oval pods. It also reproduces by division: as the parent plant swings to and fro strands break off, find new resting places, and continue their life cycle. Contrary to general opinion Spanish moss is not a parasite; as an epiphyte, or air-feeding plant, it merely uses trees as an anchor.

      Wild cane is characteristic of the low ridge lands that traverse the swamps. Its growth is very dense, and individual plants sometimes reach a height of ten feet or more. Palmettoes grow most abundantly in flat, moist hardwood districts and in the level pinewoods nearest the coast.

      ANIMAL LIFE

      A richly varied animal life finds attractive habitats in Louisiana: tidal marshes, dry prairies, tupelo-cypress swamps near the coast, large tracts of backwater woodlands in the interior, and pine-forested flats and hills. The coastal and river basin districts are notable for their wild life.

      Muskrats are abundant in the Louisiana marshes; they are the chief source of supply for the extensive Louisiana fur industry. The number reaching the American fur market from Louisiana every year is from 3,500,000 to 6,000,000, which, at its maximum, is about three times that coming from the rest of the United States and Canada. The Louisiana muskrat is a distinct species, Fiber rivalicius. It is a compactly built little animal, with an average body length of twelve inches and a ten-inch tail. The head is relatively wide, with round ears that project above the fur; the eyes are small, bright, and beady. The body is covered with a soft underfur interspersed with long, stiff, glistening guard hairs, which overlie and practically conceal the fur on the upper surface and sides of the body. The color is a dark brownish black, with reddish or golden tints on the sides, and a white or silver belly. The animal is a prolific breeder, producing from three to five litters a year, with an average of about four kits to a litter.

      The alligator is most typical of the coastal bayous and lagoons, but it also frequents all lowland streams and other inland waters. It seldom, if ever, ventures into salt water. While much less abundant than formerly, alligators are still sufficiently numerous to be hunted for the curio and leather-novelty trade.

      Besides their characteristic species, the wet wooded areas, coastwise and inland, attract animals that are most typical elsewhere. Most of the deer of Louisiana are found in the wooded swamps. The principal districts are along Atchafalaya River, in the wooded localities near the Mississippi in Southeastern Louisiana, and in the Tensas Basin swamps. Black bear, much rarer than the deer, are similarly distributed. The cougar, or panther, inhabits only the northeastern part of the State. The wild cat, raccoon, and mink, though rather general, are most common in the lowland wooded districts, where the skunk and the opossum are also to be found.

      Abundant in the wet lands, open or wooded, is the water hare, or swamp rabbit, and the gray squirrel; if the timber is tall and dense and includes oak and hickory, the fox squirrel is also present. In the Tensas Basin there is a very dark type of timber wolf; but wolves, though appearing in various parts of Louisiana, are among its rarer animals. The gray fox is more plentiful but inhabits only the upland localities. Beavers have a few small colonies on some of the swifter creeks of the State. The otter is more common and frequents lowland streams. Wild hogs are hunted in the vicinity of Lake Maurepas. Thousands of wild horses are to be found in the remote sections of southwestern Louisiana.

      The Louisiana coastal region is the greatest winter resort in North America for wild ducks and geese. Mallard, pintail, teal, gadwall, scaup, and shoveller are especially plentiful, and scatter by thousands over the great marsh areas. Most of the blue geese in North America are believed to winter on the Louisiana coast, finding a congenial environment about the mouths of the Mississippi River and on the low shell banks of the flats of the western coast.

      As a measure of national conservation, several large preserves have been established in Louisiana for the great number of wild fowl visiting the State. The more noted are the Delta Migratory Waterfowl Refuge near the mouth of the Mississippi; Marsh Island, off Vermilion Bay; the Rockefeller Wild Life Refuge, west of Vermilion Bay; and the Lacassine Federal Refuge in Cameron Parish. The combined area of these and other refuges is more than 500,000 acres. They are administered either by the Federal or State government or by the foundations that have established and endowed them in

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