FARMERS' REGISTER-rxEOLOGI€AL REMARKS, &c. 



499 



where tlie upward direction of the rocks expose 

 their edges, on the northwardly side of the ridges; 

 and as might be expected, the southern faces are 

 comparatively barren, whilst the opposite side is 

 rich and productive; and such differences are ob- 

 servable even on the south side, where deep ravines 

 expose the broken ends of rocks one side, and their 

 rather plane surface on the other. This conforma- 

 tion holds immense quantities of water and |K)urs 

 it forth even on the pinnacles of the highest hills, 

 decomposing the ground by winter freezes and 

 summer drought, and adding fertility even to the 

 rocks; the timber growing to enormous sizes, by 

 passing its roots into the interstices of rocks. The 

 region of North Carolina and Tennessee, in which 

 gold is found, about 60 to 100 miles from Saltville, 

 borders on the primitive granite and basaltic walls 

 that rise under the Blue Ridge, and are rarely ex- 

 posed on its western face; and in Virginia, the 

 copper mines of Grayson and Wythe are not re- 

 mole from similar constructions. The lead, iron 

 and salt minerals, (for the basis of salt is a mine- 

 ral,) are found in, or liedded upon, limestone, slate 

 and other rocks of the transition kind, while stone 

 coal and gypsum, and sandstone are evidently, all 

 of a much later formation, as they do not run un- 

 der, but stop short, on reaching masses of primitive 

 and transition rocks. The great upper body of the 

 Clinch and Cumberland mountains, and their ap- 

 pending chains are chiefly formed of strata and 

 irregular masses of sandstone, which is undergoing 

 great changes, decomposing in some parts and in- 

 creasing and liardening in others ; much of tlie 

 limestone composing tlie basis of these mountains 

 is a very coarse and impure carbonate. The mul- 

 titude of sulphur and Chalybeate, hot and cold 

 springs, and their various medicinal qualities in 

 Bath, Monroe, Buncomb and other places that de- 

 serve to have celebrity for their waters, exhibit 

 astonishing chemical changes yet going on far be- 

 low the earth's surface. After passing westwardly, 

 beyond the verge of these broken ranges, you 

 perceive great uniformity and order in the confor- 

 mations of rocks and soils. The rivers and creeks 

 are based with good limestone, lammellated hori- 

 zontally, and having fissures at unequal distances, 

 extending perpendicularly to great depths. Com- 

 mencing at the surface, there will be found rich, 

 loamy soils, and clays, often mixed with gravel 

 or sandstone to the depth of six or ten feet, then 

 limestone as described, next a white coarse lime- 

 stone four to eight feet, in one, two, or three strata, 

 next limestone of thicker layers, sometimes fifty 

 feet; then a layer of gray, blue, or black flint, 

 three to six feet; next blue, brittled limestone all 

 fissured and lammellar, then slate of a dark brittle 

 kind, horizontal and of considerable depth, contain- 

 ing brilliant yellow, oval lumpsof sulphur and iron, 

 below which are layers of hard, flinty, dark rocks, 

 with occasional layers of slate. At places like 

 these, and other formations of a standard kind, those 

 who would undertake to classify rocks info difTer- 

 ent ages, might form plausible theories which 

 would ' vanish into thin air' wh«n tested by the 

 mixed up productions of this mountainous country. 

 Here rude shapes of simple organization are some- 

 times seen in the transition, or what little agrees 

 with the secondary limestone of the west. There 

 the great mass of tlie rocks seem to be of organic 

 shapes, and if so composed and not mere imitations 

 by chemical action, the whole earth w'as once, or in 



process of time, in a state of animalization ; and 

 why not so every where at places abounding in 

 like ingredients.' Did animal life begin before 

 vegetable, and both before chemical agencies.'' 



In the west the speculative geologist may find 

 coal strata in primitive (not alluvial spots) earths, 

 that would seem to be of undoubted vegetable ori- 

 gin, the very timber with its bark and fibre pre- 

 sent ; but how came timber in their inclined layers 

 of equal thickness to be so deposited.'' Was it not 

 as feasible in the original formative process that 

 coal should be made in the shapeof timber, as that 

 the latter should be transformed into coal.' 



In the bank of the Ohio, at Guyandotte, you may 

 find layers of soil, of sand, of blue and other clays; 

 of coarse gravel, and a dark thick layer of fine im- 

 palpable sand and iron, having on near inspection, 

 the appearance of masses of leaves which are par- 

 tible, striated, and yet each leafit seems to have no 

 trace of woody fibre, the form only or imprint of 

 tlie leaf is there ; now if this was once a heap of 

 leaves washed by water or driven by the wind, 

 why did not the same powers which deposited 

 above them heavier misses carry them away.' A 

 more intimate acquaintance with the intermingling 

 powers of chemical affinities, and the lowest efforts 

 of vegetalde and animal life with their imitations 

 of each others capacity to assume or direct shapes 

 for matter, may perhaps in some degree, solve 

 many geological difficulties. You know that very 

 perishable and few elements enter into the struc- 

 ture of lowest organization, and does not afford a 

 basis of sufficient tenacity and durability for the 

 effects assumed.' If wherever a mass of organic 

 remains appear in rocky formation, there was in 

 the beginning, a thin strata at the bottom, of suita- 

 ble material to support the zoophile ; and then 

 form stone and so on successively, it is more 

 rational, Ihan to suppose an instant transformation 

 of all the animal substances appearing in the rock; 

 but is it philosophic to ascribe the perfection of 

 animal organization to the direct impress of the 

 Deity (as we always should do) and then assume 

 that all otlier conditions of matter in the beginning 

 was not directly, but only remotely the effect of 

 creative effort.' lielter admit a general fitness of 

 things, even to their shapes, commenced so far as 

 we can know, all about the same time and since con- 

 tinued under a set of stable rules. 



Those remarks are however, too discursive, and 

 the following shall be confined to the locality and a 

 brief history of the salt-making business. Salt- 

 ville was the property of General William Camp- 

 bell, the Hero of Kings' mountain, and after his 

 decease his only child Sarah, married General 

 Francis Preston, who rented the well and salt 

 marsh to Wm. King, an enterprising young Irish- 

 man, who conducted the business profitably, 

 returned to Ireland for his father and brothers and 

 sisters, and in a few years in partnership with the 

 late Josiah Nichol of Nashville, and other worthy 

 mercantile partners, on whom fortune has always 

 smiled, had amassed very handsome profits. Wm. 

 King apprized General Preston antl lady, that a 

 tract of land adjoining theirs was for sale, and 

 advised them to purchase, as salt-water could be 

 procured upon it, and upon their declining, he pur- 

 chased it for about .§2,000. 



King and Nichol then dug a twelve foot square 

 well, cribbing it with tind)er,and paying the Rev. 

 Mr. CoUey about 82000 for its expenses, until the 



