II 



Lardner Vanuxem, in 1826, made a report on a geological and min- 

 eralogical survey of the State. A collection of minerals from 

 different parts of the State was placed in the Museum of South 

 Carolina College. Vanuxem wrote a paper on the Tertiary and Creta- 

 ceous formations of South Carolina, and this appeared in the Journal 

 of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. He was the first 

 to note the occurrence of the Pleistocene at Charleston, collecting 

 some of the fossils of this age from a well there and taking them 

 to Philadelphia. But before 1826, even as far back as 1731, Catesby 

 wrote something of geological interest, calling attention to the en- 

 croachment of the sea upon the land. This was a matter of concern 

 at that time and attracted the attention of many, especially those of 

 a scientific turn of mind. Closely akin with this question was an- 

 other, the subsidence of the coast. Bartram, in his "Travels," was 

 the first to point out evidences of subsidence — the submerged stumps 

 of trees, common along the coast. Lyell and others noticed these 

 submerged stumps and came to the same conclusion, that these 

 stumps show a vertical submergence of the land. This mention of 

 the work of Catesby and Bartram has been made simply to show 

 that, very early in the history of the State, men were making contri- 

 butions, though slight, to its geology. 



In 1832 Conrad determined the existence of the Miocene in the 

 State. This determination rested upon some fossils collected at a 

 point just below the junction of the Wateree and Congaree rivers. 

 He also attributed certain deposits on Cooper River to the Tertiary. 



Lyell, the leading geologist of his time, in 1841-42 gave a few 

 days' investigation to the strata of the Cretaceous and Tertiary 

 formations of the State. He went down the Savannah River from 

 Augusta, examining the exposed beds as he went. He also investi- 

 gated the region from the mouth of Cooper River northwest to 

 the Santee, where that stream is joined by the old canal, a distance 

 of forty miles, and then on up the Santee to Half-Way Swamp. 

 Along the Cooper and on the Santee, he traced the white limestone 

 of the Eocene formation, and at Stout's Creek he found this to dis- 

 appear under a newer formation, the Buhrstone. The results of his 

 investigations are mentioned in a general way in his "Travels in 

 North America," and more particularly in his "Observations on the 

 White Limestone and other Eocene or Older Tertiary Formations 

 of Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia." He referred to the post- 

 Pliocene, the marine shells of eastern South Carolina, which "differ 

 in no way from those of the adjoining coast," and are contained in 



