STRETCHED PEBBLES FROM OCOEE CONGLOMERATE^ 



.S. W. McCALLIE 



Assistant State Geologist 



The stretched pebbles here described occur in the vicinity of 

 Elhjay, Gilmer County, Georgia, about seventy-five miles north of 

 Atlanta. They are well exposed in a railroad cut on the Louisville & 

 Nashville Railroad a few hundred yards north of the EUijay station, 

 and are also to be seen at various points both north and south of 

 this place, along the pubhc highway. They seem to be confined 

 chiefly to a narrow belt less than one-half mile wide and about 

 fifteen miles long, lying immediately west and parallel with the 

 Louisvihe & Nashville Railroad. There are several other points 

 outside of the belt here named where stretched pebbles are occasion- 

 ally met with, but at no place do they reach such a remarkable 

 stage of elongation. The region in which the conglomerate pebbles 

 occur forms the western margin of the Crystalline rocks of the 

 state. The surface is hilly and rough, but not so mountainous as 

 farther to the east or west. The prevailing rocks of the region 

 are slate, mica-schist, gneiss, marble, and conglomerate, all much 

 folded and contorted. These rocks belong to Safford's Ocoee Series, 

 a group of rocks of great thickness and of unknown age, but 

 apparently older than the Lower Cambrian rocks lying farther to 

 the west. 



The beds of stretched pebbles, which at some places are several 

 in number, vary in thickness from eighteen inches to five feet. 

 They are invariably interbedded with mica-schist, and always dip 

 at a steep angle. The beds differ from one another chiefly in the 

 size of the pebbles of which they are formed, and in the extent of 

 elongation of the individual pebbles themselves. In some instances 

 the pebbles have been only slightly flattened or elongated, while in 

 other cases they have been elongated more than twenty times their 



I Published by permission of the state geologist. 



55 



