”The grand reception of the Editorial Excursion at Little Rock had taken place the night before, and the party had gone to Malvern in the night, and were now on their way to Hot Springs. We therefore had nothing to do but to follow with a hope, if we should be saved from hot boxes, of overtaking them in time for the Hot Springs reception at night. The distance to Malvern from Little Rock is 43 miles, and the run was made without the happening of any incident of interest. For some distance out of Little Rock we passed through pine forests, then coming to a flatter scope of country, the oak predominated. Professor Ware, of Mines, Metals and Arts, St. Louis, says that the low country which we crossed for 160 miles before we arrived at Little Rock, and the valley toward which we are now traveling were, during the tertiary period, estuaries of the ocean, and that the elevation upon which Little Rock stands was an outlying mud-bar.”

Reference Data:

A History of the North-Western Editorial Excursion to Arkansas, by T.B. Mills & Co., 1876, page 219