Reflections on the Neches: A Naturalist's Odyssey along the Big Thicket's Snow River

Part One. Day 2

47 Part One, Day 1 Part One Day 2 BURIED FOREST River Mile 103.5 10:30 A.M. It was a misty, magical morning. The gentle rain lasted a short time; a dense fog lay over the water, but it was dispersing, so I packed and stowed my gear and pushed off over the glassy water into the mist. About ll:00 A.M. just below Cowart’s Bend, I came upon a high, colorful bluff. It was once a steamboat landing, and was the terminus of a branch of the Magnolia Springs road. The cutting action of the river here reveals about 25 feet of floodplain history covering possibly 5,000 years. At normal water level, there is at the bluff base a shelf of the rock-like gray clay found at various shoal sites between Dam B and Sheffield’s Ferry. It appears to be of Fleming Formation age as it tests high on the pH scale. (I carry a small bottle of 10 percent hydrochloric acid to test materials suspected to be calcareous.) Above this rocklike clay are several strata of different materials. There is a layer of ocher-colored silt above the clay, then a layer of compressed snowwhite , fine-grained sand, over that a layer of red iron oxide sandy clay, all topped by a dark topsoil. The erosion of these materials has created many strange and beautiful shapes and colors. They are transient in nature as the heavy rains, water seepage, and floods erase them and make blank walls for new creations. One white wall had an abstract design of brilliant red oxide painted onto the surface by water seepage from above. Buff-colored walls 48 Reflections on the Neches had white figures, and the red was decorated with black streaks from topsoil containing charcoal residue from past forest fires. The wash-out of a large tree on the bluff side left a shallow cavity in the red clay where seepage created stalactites and stalagmites of white sand. It reminded me of the sand castles we children built at the beach when wet sand was poured onto castle walls to create fanciful minarets. These walls were sculpted and painted by alternating rain, erosion, and seepage deposition into patterns, colors, and forms that would require a Michelangelo if humans were to attempt to duplicate it. I spent at least an hour perusing and enjoying nature’s masterworks of art on this bluff. An even more remarkable facet of the bluff was the revelation about 25 feet below the present forest surface, of a prehistoric forest, buried perhaps thousands of years ago by some great postglacial flood. The typical ridgeand -swale topography of a floodplain forest was revealed. Some giants on the ridges lay prone, apparently felled by the swift floodwaters and buried beneath the silt deposited as the flood abated. In the swales, the stumps of cypress trees and their knees appeared. The cypress trees seem to have been broken off or rotted away at the top of the silt level. Apparently, what had been covered by the silt was protected from deterioration by the exclusion of oxygen, while anything protruding from or fallen upon the surface of this silt layer rotted away and was lost. Dr. Saul Aronow hazarded a guess that this forest was in existence about 5,000 years ago. Mind you, I said, “hazarded a guess.” Dr. Aronow was very wary about making statements not backed up by published fact. What a priceless opportunity for some student of paleobotany to learn something about our prehistoric environment! The only problem is that the studies must be done at low water level and these don’t always coincide with university schedules. Dr. Aronow, Dave McHugh, river ranger for the Big Thicket National Preserve, and I made a canoe trip down this section of the river once when the water level was at an all-time low. At this bluff, the river flow was confined to channels and pools cut in the colorful clays and siltstone bedrock of the streambed, and at one point, the water rushed through a narrow channel and over a four- to five-foot drop. I am unaccustomed to boating in swift current or rapids, and Saul was terrified of any water not confined in a bathtub. Dave had a good laugh as we went over the small waterfall, my scream echoing from the bluff and Saul sitting soundless, white knuckles clutching the gunwales of the canoe. [3.133...