SUBTERRANEAN STREAMS IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 199 



in the deeper water may be seen full-grown perch and bream, catfish, 

 black bass, pike, and alewives. Watch the bottom for a while, and 

 you will see these fish issuing from the fissure in the rock, the larger 

 bass (four to eight pounders) never venturing far from it, and darting 

 into it at the least alarm. I well remember a pike nearly three feet 

 long which I have often struck with a fishing-cane, but which I never 

 could capture. The largest fish will not take the hook, on account of 

 the exposure to view; but the smaller bream, perch, and bass, bite with 

 great eagerness, and I have often caught from twenty to sixty in an 

 afternoon, selecting the best fish by sight, and placing the bait at their 

 very mouths. Sometimes the basin is almost empty of fish ; an hour 

 afterward enough will be visible to overstock a dozen ponds of equal 

 size. By day eels are rarely visible, and you may stir up all the 

 patches*of grass along the bed without discovering one; at night they 

 are frequently caught, the negroes sometimes " gigging " them of the 

 largest size. The teniperatui-e of the water is the same winter and 

 summer, about 62, and the fish bite best in the coldest weather. I 

 have examined the sandy margins at all seasons, and have never seen 

 a fish-bed in this or any other of the springs. They do not breed in 

 them, and indeed could not possibly do so. 



From the lower extremity of this large basin proceeds the " run," 

 a shallow, winding stream down which the larger fish could not pos- 

 sibly make their way. Indeed, I once caught a two-pound bass 

 stranded, having essayed the passage and failed. Following this run 

 about five hundred yards, we come suddenly on another busin, circu- 

 lar in form and much smaller than the first. Its greatest diameter 

 is probably not over fifteen feet, while its greatest depth, near the 

 centre, is fully ten. The bottom descends like a huge funnel, but on 

 one side there is a projecting ledge of rock, under which, sloping 

 downward in a direction away from the upper basin, is a hole seem- 

 ingly about a foot in diameter. Out of this hole bass and pike of the 

 largest size are seen to emerge, while the upper basin is filled with 

 small bream and sunfish, biting readily at angle-worms, and occasion- 

 ally a large red-bellied perch, a species rarely seen in the basin, will 

 dart from under the rock-ledge and seize the bait. The little stream 

 is lost at this basin, which has no outlet, but is surrounded by a wet, 

 swampy piece of ground. jSTot far from these basins marl has been 

 extensively dug, and one or two beds of greensand have been found, 

 but' I never knew the hard limestone-rock which forms the bottom of 

 the springs to be struck in any of the excavations. 



Proceeding now in a northwesterly direction, we find another of 

 these basins on a plantation about two miles off. The ground falls 

 suddenly into a little valley about twelve feet deep and six or seven 

 wide, at the head of which stands a very old oak-tree, growing on the 

 upper level. On the southeast the roots have been exposed by the 

 washing of the clay soil, and immediately under them lies the spring. 



