THE PIEDMONT REGIOX. 131 



ing themselves no evidence free from question that any living things 

 existed at the period when they were formed, it is upon their flanks, and 

 largely from material furnished by their disintegration, that the whole 

 series of formations composing the surface of the earth and marking the 

 different geological eras of its history has been built up. In South Carolina 

 these oldest rocks appear among the sands of the tertiary — the most 

 recent geological age. The records of the intervening ages have dis- 

 appeared, and the stone pages upon which the introductory and conclud- 

 ing chapters of the earth's history are written, here lie side by side. 

 Among the oldest of these rocks are the 



GRANITES, 



which have their outcrops in Carolina along three nearh'- parallel lines, 

 as follows : 



1st. On the most southern of these lines the granite shows itself among 

 the sand hills at Graniteville, on Horse creek, Aiken count}^, and thence 

 at various points in a northeasterly direction to Columbia. Notable quar- 

 ries for building materials are worked at Graniteville and at Granby, 

 below Columbia. 



2d. The second line of outcrop extends from the neighborhood of 

 Horn's creek, Edgefield county, across Newberr}^ Fairfield and Kershaw 

 counties, to the northwestern corner of Chesterfield. In Edgefield, New- 

 berry and Fairfield, the granite is associated with beds of hornblende rock 

 and forms the substratum of a heavy, dark, red clay loam, which is one 

 of the best and strongest soils in the State. Here, also, quarries of excel- 

 lent granite, fine-grained and easily splitting, have been found, especially 

 in Newberry and Fairfield counties, where inexhaustible quantities of 

 the best building granite are found. There is a beautiful flesh-colored 

 porphyritic granite found in Kershaw. In Edgefield and Lancaster it 

 becomes coarser and syenitic in character. 



3d. The third line of outcrop stretches through Laurens, Union and 

 York counties. In the vicinity of Union C. H., the granite is of exceed- 

 ingly fine grain, and well adapted for architectural purposes, but the most 

 of it on this line is characterized by a coarse porphyried structure, and it 

 shows itself in an undecomposed state at only a few points. 



GNEISS, 



or laminated granite, forms by far the larger portion oi the rock under- 

 lying this region. No strict line of demarcation between it and the gran- 

 ite has been established. In mineral constituents, color and grain, they 



