OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 189 
beds by which they are covered. It may be seen on all the islands, on the shores of the inlets, as 
on Stono, Abapoola Creek, and elsewhere, on John’s Island. It is also exposed on the islands near 
Beaufort, and at other places near the town. 
But the most interesting locality in the State is that at Mr. Simmons’s, on Wadmalaw Sound, 
about twelve miles below Rantowle. The section at this place may be represented thus— 
ee werner 
| 10 feet. | Sand, 
2 feet | Red loam, containing casts of shells. ; 
2 ile Oley, 
rd 
eReaalterons tee composed of aud 
4 feet. and comminuted shells. Fossils 
3 in fine preservation. 3 
] 
$ 
i 
-: 2 feet. 
i 
8 
anna 
The uppermost fourteen feet is perpendicular—the rest slopes gradually under the tide, which 
rises to the level of the top of the fossilliferous portion of the section. 
The appearance of the beach here was striking when I first saw it: laid bare at low-water, it 
was strewed with shells of all the species now found living on the coast—many of them occupy- 
ing the position in which they lived and died. 
Hundreds of Lutraria canaliculata paved the surface, precisely as they bury themselves in the 
sand, near low-water mark, at this moment; and Scuwtella 5—phora is represented by a very large 
species, which Prof. Agassiz has determined to be new. 
So life-like did these shells appear that it required the presence of forms no longer inhabitants of 
the coast, to satisfy one that he was not looking at a recent shell bed. 
Since the deposition of this, the changes in the elevation of the coast must have been slight at 
this point, for Pholas costata and P. truncata are found living, burrowing among their fossil con- 
genets. Sanguinolaria fusca is also found living at this place. 
The beds of sand overlying the fossilliferous bed correspond very nearly with the beds of moving 
sand along the coast. ‘This is not so obvious south of Charleston as it is on the coast of Horry, 
where the line separating the recent sand-hills from the rest of the surface, between the Waccamaw 
and the coast, cannot be determined. The whole country, excepting where a swamp or marsh 
intervenes, presents an undulating surface, such as might result from a partial levelling of the 
moving sand-hills distributed along the coast at present. 
I have, in another place, shown that the beds of pebbles, gravel, &c. of the Tertiary are the 
debris of the rocks of the upper part of the State, brought down by the action of water. They 
must not, however, be confounded with Dilwvium proper, for they contain no angular blocks, nor 
are the pebbles of such a size as to entitle them to the name of boulders. I have no where in the 
State seen one a foot in diameter, nor have I met with a single bed that I could refer to this for- 
mation along the Tertiary plane, from the Mississippi to the Potomac. 
As we proceed southwards, the materials composing the silicious beds of the Tertiary become 
48 
