THE UPPER PINE BELT. 73 



furnish a water-power sufficient for grinding and ginning, a few hundred 

 feet from the spot where they issue from the earth). In Sumter, such 

 are Black river, Scape, and Big and Little Rafting creeks ; in Darlington, 

 Cedar (where a cotton factory was erected in 1812 by General Williams), 

 Sparrow, High Hill, Swift, Dake, Jeffry's, Middle, and Brickhold creeks, 

 with others ; in Marlboro, Crooked, Beaver Dam, Three Runs, Naked, 

 Muddy, White's, Phill's, Husband's, and Hick's creeks ; in Marion, Cat- 

 fish, Ashpole, Buck, Sweet, Big, Smith, and Pope creeks. There are 

 numerous small lakes, chiefly in the swamps, but sometimes on the up- 

 lands ; in Barnwell, there is one, a beautiful sheet of clear water, two 

 miles in circumference, with a beach-like shore, affording a fine drive, 

 and surrounded on all sides by high and healthy pine uplands. The 

 sweep wells, the bucket being attached to a pole, fastened to a long lever 

 balanced near its middle, are characteristic of this region ; generally they 

 are from ten to twenty feet in depth, with only a short wooden curb on 

 top, for the rest uncurbed, being dug through a fine, compact, yellow or 

 red clay, to a stratum of quicksand, in which an abundant supply of 

 pure and cool water is found. 



GEOLOGICAL FEATURES. 



West of the Black river, in Sumter county, the line where the buhr-stone 

 formation passes under the Santee marls, traverses the centre of the upper 

 pine belt. North of it occur the silicified shells of the buhr-stone ; south 

 of it, the coralline marls, both belonging to the eocene. East of the 

 stream named, and in the direction of Darlington courthouse, occur 

 numerous outcroppings of the miocene marls, in Sumter and Darlington 

 counties. Lower down, in Darlington and Marion counties, on the 

 waters of Lynch 's river and of the Great and Little Pee Dee, extensive 

 beds of marl of the cretaceous formation of the secondary make their ap- 

 pearance. 



Commencing on the Savannah river, a few miles above the mouth of 

 the lower Three Runs, Mr. Tuomey traces the upper limit of the Santee 

 marls to Tinker's creek, the dividing line of Aiken and Barnwell counties ; 

 thence, southeasterly, to Binnaker's bridge, on the South Edisto river ; 

 thence to Caw Caw swamp, north of Orangeburg, and across to Halfway 

 swamp, where, below the site of Stuart's old mill, the most satisfactory 

 locality is found for observing the passage of the buhr-stone formation 

 under the green sand, overlaid by thick strata of Santee marls ; thence 

 to the Santee river, and across that stream into Clarendon and Sumter 

 counties. As an average, the Santee marls are found to contain 88t^j per 

 cent, of carbonate of lime, and were formerly in considerable use as an 



