146 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



Fear river. Merely the name must excite attention, 

 since from the general nature of this country, a rocky 

 point suggested something unlooked-for, something 

 strange. But at Wilmington I soon found the ex- 

 planation. This town is situated on the deep-cut banks 

 of the river; behind and around, the land lies higher, 

 the continuation, that is, of the general sand-surface, 

 here broken by hollows formed by the river and 

 several other smaller streams. Near to the town, and 

 hard by the water, there are apparent at the surface 

 several beds of shell-stone, many feet in thickness ; 

 covered with a bed of white, pure sand in which no 

 strata were plainly to be observed. The shell-bed is 

 thus laid bare at the river-side, and consists of a stone 

 for the most part hard, here and there clearly stratified. 

 It is altogether made up of the same sorts of cockles 

 and shells as that mentioned at York in Virginia. 

 They are more or less crushed, particularly in the 

 deepest layers ; higher up, a good many are to be seen 

 whole among those broken, and quite at the top they 

 are not so closely associated, but mixed with sand, 

 reddish clay, and, now and then, small rounded peb- 

 bles. In places where the harder rock has been ex- 

 posed to the air and the current, there are many hollow 

 spots among the shells and fragments, the sand or 

 other binding parts having been washed out. In the 

 middle of this rock-bank there appears a layer which 

 is distinct in hardness and purer whiteness, and might 

 almost be taken for white marble were it not for the 

 very small crevices among the shell-fragments, here 

 very small themselves. Now and again there were 

 plainly to be seen entire impressions of the flat sea- 

 star (Echinus Orbiculus L.). 



