19 



in an article published in the American Journal of Science in 1859, 

 he treats changes along the coast and puts himself on record as a 

 believer that the coast is subsiding. 



About 1870 the phosphate industry of the State had grown to 

 such proportions as to make the question of the origin of the phos- 

 phoric acid, of the extent of the beds, of the varying richness and 

 probability of continuance a matter of investigation for geologists. 

 Dr. U. C. Shepherd, Prof. N. S. Shaler, and Prof. F. S. Holmes 

 were among the number to turn their attention to these phosphate 

 deposits. The fragments of Eocene (as then considered) marl, 

 worn and robbed of their lime and giving a "naphthous odor" when 

 rubbed together, that Tuomey and Holmes, and perhaps others, 

 had noticed along the Ashley as early as 1850, were found to be 

 rich phosphate. The question as to how they were enriched links 

 them to the Pleistocene, for it is generally thought now that the 

 phosphoric acid has been supplied from the offal and bones of the 

 vertebrate animals whose fossils Holmes claims for the Pleistocene. 

 Be that as it may, Shaler studied the geology of the Carolina coast 

 region, and in his article in the United States Coast Survey, Report 

 of 1870, he contributed something to the knowledge of South Caro- 

 lina Pleistocene. In general, he observed : That the two or three 

 tiers of islands along the coast from Winyah Bay southward are 

 separated from one another and from the mainland by tide-water 

 creeks that are for the most part parallel to the shore line, and that 

 therefore the stream channels are not the result of glacier scourings, 

 as is the case along the coast of Maine ; that the origin of these 

 stream channels, since no sign of aerial erosion could be found, must 

 be attributed to the work of tidal currents before this region was up- 

 lifted the last time or just as it was being uplifted; that according 

 to Professor Agassiz, the Florida mole had not been built in early 

 Pleistocene times, and that therefore the Gulf Stream came in much 

 closer to the shore then than now, and its power as a scouring agent 

 was more vigorous ; that there is no real subsidence of the coast, 

 the seeming subsidence being due to the land being undermined by 

 the waves and to the decay of considerable thicknesses of vegetable 

 matter, bringing about a settling down of the overlying sands. 



There remains of this historic review only to mention briefly the 

 work done in the region within the last quarter of a century, such 

 work being used as a basis for another division of this paper. In 

 1 88 1 Professor Leidy discussed "Vertebrate Remains, Chiefly from 

 South Carolina." In 1882 we have the report of the Committee on 



