OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 65 
Localities of granite are quite numerous around Union; towards the North-west, on Rocky Creek, 
and onwards to Pacolet. 
In Spartanburg District, on the road from Glenn’s Springs to the village, some fine localities 
oceur. Between Cowpens and Limestone Springs granite is exposed at the surface, and two or 
three miles north of the latter place an interesting section is presented, where gneiss is seen reposing 
against the granite. In some of the wells near the springs a white and fine porcelain clay has 
been excavated, which shows that the granite has been reached. 
At McMullen’s Mills, and other places between the Cowpen’s battle ground and Greenville Dis- 
trict, this rock is exposed; on Wildcat, and again on Rocky Creek, twenty miles south of the 
village. In Lancaster, north of the Court House, near Waxhaw Creek, and on the Catawba, at 
Landsford, granite may be seen. 
Yorkville stands on a granitic ridge, and this rock comes to the surface again on Fishing Creek, 
and other localities between that and King’s Mountain. In the vicinity of the village good exam- 
ples of the granite of this region may be seen, spotted with crystals of black mica. 
Between the Stump House Mountain, in Pickens, and the Estatoe, granite is frequently laid bare 
on the surface; and further on, at the base of the mountains, near Burton’s. 
I have thus barely enumerated some of the principal localities of this rock. It would be no easy 
task to point them all out, if to do so were of any consequence. It is very evident that the portion 
of the State between the mountains and the Tertiary series rests upon a foundation of granite, 
having a very uneven surface, which was once entirely covered by the superincumbent slates. 
These are removed in patches by denudation, and the underlying granite is exposed, to a greater 
or less extent—often at widely distant localities. 
It is still more difficult in every case to separate true granite from gneiss, into which it passes by 
such insensible gradation as to make it impossible to say where the one begins and the other ends. 
For instance, at Van Patton’s Shoals, on Enoree, a portion of the rock is granite, whilst the rest 
presents the true planes of stratification of gneiss. 
Mineral Contents——The beds of porcelain clay, derived from granite, and the auriferous veins 
found in it, on Wildcat Creek, in Greenville District, and on the Pacolet in Union, are nearly all 
the economic minerals found in the granite of South Carolina, if we except the mill-stones and 
excellent material for building purposes that it every where affords. 
Basattic or Trap Rocks. 
Although I was previously acquainted, from personal observation, with the series of trap dykes 
extending from Virginia through North Carolina, yet I was not prepared to find§these rocks so 
extensively developed in this State; and it seems not a little surprising that they should have 
hitherto excited so little attention as to be scarcely known. I have since traced these dykes 
through Georgia, and as far as the Coosa River, in Alabama, which is their South-eastern 
boundary. 
Both the trap and other rocks, with which it is associated, are so much disintegrated that it is 
impossible to observe the form presented by the dykes at the surface. I have not met with a single 
instance where this rock presents any thing like an escarpment, although the manner in which it 
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