ELISHA MITCHELL SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY. 97 



manures, a better druiuaga ot" tlio laml and otlier iinprovetnents 

 in agricultural methods. 



In the prosecution of the survey Mr. Ruffin hihorcd alone, 

 except during December (1843), when other duties and ill health 

 rendered necessary his stay in Columbia, he employed an assist- 

 ant to examine for him calcareous deposits along the north-east 

 border of the State. I am unable to obtain any information as 

 to the name and history of this assistant. Mr. Ruffin says con- 

 cerning him in a letter to Governor Hammond published in 

 Tuomev's Report for 1844:* "But havino^ had latterly the ser- 

 vices of an assistant in whose care and accuracy I could implic- 

 itly rely, he was sent with special and particular instructions, to 

 examine the most extensive and important of the omitted locali- 

 ties, as soon as it was certain that I could not perform the duty. 

 The ground left for these last intended observations, and where 

 calcareous deposits were expected to be found, was along Lynch's 

 Creek, the Waccamaw River, and any other places on and near 

 the line of route to the north-eastern border of the State, in which 

 marl might be discovered, or heard of, on the journey.'^ 



No claim is made for additions to science resultiutr from this 

 survey. Mr. Ruffin was an intelligent and careful observer, but 

 he had enjoyed no training in any department of science, and his 

 entire aim here was economic results; though in the prosecu- 

 tion of his work he added materially to the then existing knowl- 

 edge as to the boundaries and character of the tertiary deposits 

 and corrected many errors as to localities for characteristic fossils. 

 As to material benefits resulting to the people of the State 

 from his labor, it may be said (1) to have awakened a more 

 general spirit of inquiry and experiment among the planters; 

 (2) to have led to the more general adoption of some improved 

 methods, such as ditching the lowlands, using green manure 

 for a supply of vegetable matter, and (3) it led to a more 

 general use of marl, which, in many cases at least, proved highly 

 beneficial. 



'Report on the Geological and Agricultural Survey of South Carolina, 1844, p. 57. 



