THE RED HILL REGION. Ill 



eastern corner of Snmter, they are not continuous, but are interrupted at 

 greater or less intervals by the protrusion of the sand hills. Mills' descrip- 

 tion of them east of the Santee river will give an idea of how this occurs. 

 He says, " they take their rise about nine miles north of Nelson's ferry on 

 the Santee, and form that fine body of brick mould land (3d Sup. Dist., 

 E. D. 14 and 15) in tlie Richardson settlement. After continuing eight 

 miles, they become suddenly sand hills a little above Manchester. At 

 the end of eleven miles they again become red land, which continues to 

 Buck creek, nine miles above Statesburg. These hills up to this point 

 appear to hang over the Wateree swamps, but now they diverge and turn 

 to the northeast, with one ridge in the middle forming a backl)one ; 

 breaking off into hills towards the Wateree, and sloping off gradually 

 towards Black river. At Buck creek the hills again become sandy, which 

 gradually increases for fifteen or sixteen miles, to Bradford Springs ; a 

 little above this place they join tile sand hills of the middle country." 

 If these alternations were carefully traced it is probable they would be 

 found to be due to removal by denudation of the red clay loam from the 

 slopes of sand and gravel that rise in the sand hills. For the sienna- 

 colored clay loam, characteristic of this region, seldom has a depth greater 

 than twenty feet, and is underlaid by beds of sand and gravel. 



GEOLOGICAL FEATURES. 



The red hill recjion belong-s to the buhr-stone formation of the eocene. 

 It presents a series of four quite dissimilar and well marked strata. 

 Commencing with the superior, or more recent, these are : 



1st. Beds of red sienna-colored siliceous clay, having a thickness of 

 fifteen to thirty feet, and containing fragments of buhr-stone. It was the 

 observation by Mr. Tuomey of the passage of these clays under the marl 

 and green sand formations of the Charleston basin, at the Belle Brough- 

 ton place, on Halfway swamp, in Orangeburg county (E. D. 150), which 

 satisfied him that Mr. Lyell had erred in supposing that the buhr-stone 

 overlaid the calcareous beds in South Carolina. This observation settles 

 a point of considerable practical importance. For as the buhr-stone under- 

 lies and forms the floor of the lime formations of the eocene, no marl beds 

 need be looked for above the line of its occurrence. 



2d. Beds of coarse red and yellow sands, having a thickness of thirty 

 to sixty feet. In these beds are sometimes found, at a depth of fifty feet, 

 crystals of rutile, either lying loose among the sands or imbedded in 

 rounded masses of quartz or felspar, water-worn by still quite perfect 

 pyramidal crystals of quartz an inch in length, are also found among these 

 sands. 



