THE COAST REGION. 19 



texture and deepening in color, sometimes to red. These clays give a yel- 

 low hue to the otherwise gray surface, which is noticed by Mr. Seabrook 

 as indicating lands peculiarly adapted for the production of the silky 

 fibre of long staple cotton. Besides these soils there are numerous flats, or 

 fresh water swamps, known as bays ; here and there a few of these have 

 been reclaimed by drainage ; the soil is a black vegetable mould of great 

 fertility, resting on fine blue clay and marl. To a very limited extent 

 the salt marsh has also been reclaimed, but as yet agriculture has availed 

 itself so little of the vast possibilities in this line, that the chief value of 

 the salt marsh attaches to its use in furnishing forage and litter for stock 

 and inexhaustible material for the compost heap. Low as these lands lie, 

 they are susceptible of drainage. The following analyses will indicate 

 more in detail the character of the soils : 



(1) 



Insoluble matter 89.368 



Soluble silica 2.062 



Potash 0.131 



Soda 0.077 



Lime 0.077 



Magnesia 0.038 



Br. ox. manganese 0.154 



Per oxide iron 0.598 



Alumina 3.051 



Phosphoric acid 0.163 



Sulphuric acid 0.154 



Water and organic matter 4.789 



Carbonic acid. 



(1) Is soil from northeast end of James island, furnished by Elias Riv- 

 ers, Esq., for analysis, to Dr. Eugene A. Smith, of Tuscaloosa, Ala., and 

 may be taken as a specimen of the less sandy soils of the sea islands. 

 Such land will yield three hundred pounds of long staple lint one year 

 Math another. 



(2) Is by Prof. C. U. Shepard, of Charleston, of soil from Mr. J. J. Mi- 

 kell's place on Edisto island, famous for having long and profitably pro- 

 duced the finest grade of sea island cotton, and may be considered as a 

 representative soil. 



(3) Is also by Prof. C. U. Shepard, being an analysis of an air-dry speci- 

 men of salt marsh. 



These analyses will serve to correct serious errors in statements as to 

 the poverty of sea islands, made by J. B. Lyman and J. R. Sypher, in a 



