244 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE 
very rare, and-but little known, I have thought it desirable to give in the following pages 
an abstract of his observations. In the four annual reports already noticed, together with 
the included supplement, Lieber proposed to describe the ancient stratified rocks of the 
state, and successively corrected and enlarged his descriptions ; by collating which we are 
enabled to frame a connected statement of his views. Lieber divides the crystalline rocks 
of the state into three parts, namely, the Itacolumitic group, and what he called sub-Itaco- 
lumitic and super-Itacolumitic rocks. For the first-named or middle one of these alone 
can be claimed the distinction of a natural group, inasmuch as it contains rocks closely 
allied, and everywhere intimately associated. 
§ 73. His descriptions apply to the King’s-Mountain region, as seen in South Carolina, 
which we have defined in $ 69, and of which a good geological map, with an ideal section, 
is given in report II. (plate xii). A description in report I., of the series as there displayed, 
was afterwards corrected in report IL, and finally given, with some additions, in report 
Ill. From these, substituting the word “ quartzite” for “itacolumite,” and adding some 
explanations, we get the following section, which represents the whole succession as 
described by Lieber, numbered in descending order : 
1. Banded blue crystalline limestone. 
. A bed of granular quartzite. 
. Talcose slate, with lenticular layers of catawbarite (an aggregate of magnetite and tale). 
. Granular quartzite (sometimes absent). 
. Granular limestone or marble, mottled or banded, sometimes with taley interlaminations. 
. Granular quartzite; a great mass, with layers of the flexible elastic variety. 
. Specular schists, consisting of micaceous hematite and quartz; passing into itabirite, in 
TO oO PR CE ND 
which magnetite replaces hematite. 
8. Quartzite and quartzose conglomerate. 
9. Talcose slates of loose texture, passing gradually into the quartzite above. 
§ 74. Beneath these, Lieber placed, in his sub-Itacolumitic division, clay-slate, talcose 
slate, mica-slate, hornblende-slate, gneiss and granite; some of which were conjectured by 
him to be igneous rocks. He describes a stratiform granite, passing into a fine gray variety 
with thin hornblendic bands, which is distinct from the coarse porphyritic granites of other 
parts of the state, and is overlaid by a great mass of mica-schists holding brown iron-ores 
derived from pyrites. These various rocks, in his opinion, have no necessary relation to 
those above them, but are simply the strata which, in different parts, underlie the Itacolu- 
mitic series. Little is said about the underlying clay-slate and talcose slate, both of which — 
may perhaps belong to the upper series. To this, all the others were referred, with the 
possible exception of the upper or blue limestone, which was provisionally designated as 
super-Itacolumitic, because it is unlike the marbles below, and also is apparently above 
the horizon of the gold-veins, which are common to the inferior rocks of the Itacolumitie 
series. 
§ 75. No measurements of the several members of the series are given by Lieber, but 
as seen at King’s Mountain, he says, “its thickness will probably equal nearly a mile.” 
As represented in the engraved section in report I. (plate V.), it is highly contorted, and in 
some places shows inverted dips ; the strike being between north and northeast. No direct 
evidences of organic life are seen in the series, if we except the forms observed by C. U. 
Shepard, in the upper blue limestone at the Broad-River quarry in York district, and by 

