128 THE riEDMONT REGION. 



tiary plain to form the Santce river, which lias been called the river of 

 South Carolina. The swift Catawba, with a fall of nearly six feet to the 

 mile, merges into the Wateree and forms the eastern and main channel 

 of this river system. Its larger affluents all reach it from the west, those 

 from the east being, in comparison, small. Tlie Saluda, on the other 

 hand, the most westerly river of the group, receives all its larger affluents 

 from the east ; a high ridge on its western water shed, for the most part 

 barely five miles wide, separates its waters from those flowing into the 

 Savannah. The triangular space enclosed between these two streams and 

 washed by their numerous tributaries, viz : Reedy, Little, Bush, Broad, 

 Ennoree, Tyger, Pacolet and Fair Forest rivers, besides many large creeks 

 and branches, bears ample, evidence to the erosion it has suffered. The 

 softer rocks, such as talc and mica slates, found beyond these streams on 

 the eastern and western ridges of the triangle, are wanting within, it 

 having been washed away, leaving behind them only the hard gneiss or 

 the still harder granite to dispute the passage of the waters. 



RIVERS. 



The following gives the leading characteristics of some of these streams 

 so far as they have been ascertained, numerically : 



