NORTH-CAROLINA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 87 



FIG. 5. 



1. Soil, consisting of red earth penetrating into an excava 

 tion in the bed of Eocene marl. 2. Position of the ordinary 

 shell marl. 3. Upper part of the bed in which most of the 

 fossils occur. 4. Body of white, or light drab colored marl. 



The section shows the rnarl beds of Mr. Wadsworth, of 

 Craven county. 



It will be observed that the shell marl is in contact with 

 the drab colored marl, the entire mass of the lignite forma 

 tion of the Cape Fear being absent. At this place, the 

 brown earth is present filling the ancient fissures of denuda 

 tion. The shell marl is not present at this point, but appears 

 in the same relative position three or four hundred yards 

 west from this bed. 



58. The foregoing sections show the diverse nature of the 

 beds composing many of the bluffs of the Cape Fear, Neuse 

 and Tar rivers. The same facts would be also shown by sec 

 tions at many points upon the Eoanoke and Meherrin rivers 

 farther north. The position of the shell marl seems to change, 

 as in one case it rests upon the green sand, in the second 

 upon a lignite formation some sixty or seventy feet thick, 

 and then again upon a whitish marl which is well known to 

 belong to the Eocene period. 



The formation above the shell marl is mostly a marine sand. 

 Its thickness is variable, and it is sufficiently great to prove 

 that a long interval had elapsed before the present was fully 

 ushered in. 



59. The series of beds, from the green sand upwards, 

 which hold a definite place in the geological scale, have been 

 exhibited in the sections alluded to, do not take in the most 



