134 THE PIEDMONT REGION. 



fore, younger than the other rocks of this region, excepting, possibly, the 

 itacohimitic scries alone. 



TRAP. 



The Trappean rocks remain to be mentioned. They are found chiefly 

 on two lines. The principal one is the most southerly and extends from 

 Edgefield across to where the Catawba enters the State. Their trend is a 

 little more to the north of east than that of the other strata, which they 

 therefore cross at an angle. Their greatest development is in Chester and 

 York, where they form the substratum of a large body of very peculiar 

 lands, known as the blackjack lands. These Trappean rocks show them- 

 selves along another line parallel with this one and to the north of it, 

 stretching from Calhoun's Mills, in Abbeville, to the Lockhart shoals on 

 Broad river, in Union. Here they also give rise to a peculiar and inter- 

 esting body of lands known as the " flat woods " of Abbeville, and the 

 " meadow lands " of Union. In Chester and York the prevailing dykes 

 are of melaphyre and of aphanitic and dioritic porphyry ; in Abbeville 

 of felsitic and dioritic porphyries. 



This brief sketch of the geological features of the region requires a 

 reference to the ores and minerals found there : 



GOLD. 



" Gold," writes Governor Drayton, in 1802, " is said to have been found 

 in sufficient c[uantity to be made into a ring, but this is only a report of 

 what is said to have taken place many years ago." In 1826, the occur- 

 rence of gold in Abbeville and Spartanburg is merely mentioned by j\Iills 

 in his " Statistics of South Carolina." The United States Census of 1840 

 states, that " fifty-one hands were engaged (chiefly in iron mines) in min- 

 ing in South Carolina." In 1848, Mr. Tuomey found over two hundred 

 hands at work in the Brewer gold mine in Chesterfield, from which more 

 than $1,000,000 in gold has since been taken. In 1859, Lieber writes on 

 a line on the map of the State crossing it at the lower border of the meta- 

 morphic rocks : " Above this line most streams contain some gold in their 

 sands." At that date twenty-one gold mines had been opened in the talc 

 slates of Chesterfield and Lancaster, and ten in the same slates in Abbe- 

 ville and Edgefield ; among the latter, the Dorn mine, that has yielded 

 $1,100,000 and upwards in gold. In Spartanburg, in Union and York 

 there were nineteen gold mines, mostly in the mica slates, and in Green- 

 ville and Pickens, eight others, chiefly gravel deposits — in all fifty- 

 seven. Work has been abandoned since the war in all or in nearly 



