CHAPTER IV. 



THE UPPER PINE BELT. 



LOCATION, PHYSICAL FEATURES AND GEOLOGY. 



The upper pine belt of South Carolina is sometimes called the middle 

 country, as distinguished from the upper country and the low country, 

 between which it lies. It has also been known as the central cotton 

 region of Carolina, having formerly led, as it still does, in some regards, 

 in the culture of that staple. It may be defined as that portion of the 

 State lying between an elevation above the sea of 130 and 250 feet. It 

 crosses the State, in a northeasterly direction, from the Savannah river to 

 the North Carolina line. To the south it is bounded by the lower pine 

 belt, where the fiat, open piney woods, with an undergrowth of coarse 

 grasses, gradually gives place to the higher and more rolling pine lands, 

 with an undergrowth of oak and hickory. To the north, the upper pine 

 belt sweeps round the feet of the interrupted range of high red hills 

 traversing the State, or rises, in the intervals of this range, to the still more 

 elevated sand hills. It comprises, generally, the counties of Barnwell, 

 Orangeburg, Sumter, Darlington, Marlboro and Marion. The northern half 

 of Hampton and the northwest corner of Colleton are included in it. Along 

 the rivers, it penetrates northward beyond the limits of the counties named. 

 As uplands, on the first level above the swamps, it extends, in Aiken 

 county, as high up the Savannah as Old Fort Moore, at Sand Bar ferry ; 

 in Richland, it reaches along the Congaree nearly to Columbia, em- 

 bracing«the wide, level area of Lower Township, lying between that river 

 and the sand hills ; along the Wateree, between the swamps and the High 

 Hills of Santee, it passes into Kershaw county, and along the Great Pee 

 Dee it passes up among the sand hills of Chesterfield. 



