Tour to thi Caves in l^rginia. €9 



Wednesday \8th. Started early, and arrived at Warrington, 

 Fauquier County, to dinner. Dr. W. of this village, presented us 

 with several interesting specimens of minerals and rocks, also a 

 fossil molar tooth of an elephant, found in this vicinity. Warrington 

 is situated on an elevated plain, from whence the views are very 

 beautiful. Nothing could be more kind than our reception here. 

 Thursday 191 h. Left Warrington at day-break, — roads moun- 

 tainous, and in Pennsylvania would be considered very bad. It 

 gave us pain to see so many listless, idle persons, passing their 

 days about the taverns. Men playing at marbles like boys, and 

 exceedingly prone to cursing and swearing. In Pennsylvania, 

 we are not happy without some useful occupation, and our peo- 

 ple know how to help themselves. Here the climate, and the sad 

 burden of negro slavery, which oppresses the white man still 

 more, have made him dependant upon others ; and if a gate is to 

 be opened, or the slightest thing to be raised from the ground, 

 Sambo, or Governor, or Major, or Colonel, or some pseudo digni- 

 tary of the African stock, is called from his work to do it. 



In approaching the Blue mountains, the hills appear to be 

 composed of the following strata ; at least we crossed them in the 

 following succession, our route lying in a direction south of west. 

 1. A red sandstone : our course lay for many miles parallel to 

 this stratum ; in these parts of Virginia, it constitutes the surface 

 rock, the disintegration of which generally forms the common 

 soil of the country, and gives the red appearance to the newly 

 ploughed lands. The soil bears good grain and clover. 2. Talc- 

 ose rock. 3. Greenstone. 4. Slate. 5. Decomposed greenstone, or 

 red earth, as it is called. It is of a brick-dust colour, covered 

 with loose fragments of quartz, and is apparently the same 

 earth in which the gold is found in Carolina and Georgia. This 

 extreme point of the gold region displays itself here on the main 

 road, in the vicinity of a blacksmith's shop, ten miles north of Cul- 

 pepper court house, about twenty miles in a parallel line from 

 the gold region of Spotsylvania. It rained during the short time 

 we could dedicate to this locality, in which some slight traces of 

 the metal were observed. We dug through several feet of this hill, 

 and beneath the loose quartz, we observed several veins of decom- 

 posed micacious rock, alternating with veins of quartz, both dip- 

 ping at an angle of about 65°. The mica, in these glittering sands, 

 is thought to be gold dust, by a great many of the country people. 



