71 JOURNAIv OF THE 



Chatham county, fifteen miles southwest of Chapel Hill, 

 Professor Holmes informs me that specimens of undoubt- 

 ed volcanic rocks have recently beensecured. He has also 

 sent me, within the past month, a suite of similar speci- 

 mens from Pace's Brid^-e, on Haw River, three miles 

 above By num." 



Since that time the same volcanics have been found at 

 the Narrows of the Yadkin river, alon«- the Deep river at 

 Lockville, and for five or six miles northwest of Lock- 

 ville. At the last two localities the masses are often 

 brecciated and usually sheared into perfect crystalline 

 chloritic schists. 



It is of interest to note, in the above descriptions of Dr. 

 Williams, the occurrence, on the Taylor farm near Pitts- 

 boro, of a brig-ht red porphyry with flow lines, in so alter- 

 ed a conditfon that it can be easily cut into any form with 

 a knife. This is undoubtedh^ the same rock, and from 

 the same locality, as that described by Emmons as a de- 

 composed red variety of his Upper Taconic argillaceous 

 or clay slate, (p. 58). 



Conclusions. In thirs brief resume, then, we can recog- 

 nize Kmmons' Taconic and Kerr's Huronian rocks of the 

 central gold-bearing- slate belt. 



The bitter controversies reirarding the Taconic ques- 

 tion among geologists are well known, and need not 

 be taken up here. It is sufficient to say that geologists 

 by later and more detailed work and study have seen fit 

 to differentiate various members of the old Taconic sys- 

 tem in different parts of the country, and refer them to 

 more definite horizons. Thus the granular quartz of 

 Emmons' typical Taconic section in the Berkshire Hills 

 of Massachusetts, has been found to be characterized by 

 the Olenellus fauna of the Lower Cambrian; and the 

 Berkshire or Stockbridge limestone by the Chazy-Tren- 

 ton, and perhaps at its base by an Upper Cambrian fauna; 

 and the original Lower Taconic slate of Emmons is cor- 

 related, by its stratagraphic position, with the Hudson 



