556 W. C. PHALEN 



Owenby & Co. This particular spot has been visited twice by the 

 writer, first in the fall of 1907 and again two years later. 



DETAILED GEOLOGIC RELATIONS 



The cut is chiefly in the characteristic impervious surface or mantle 

 clays of the region, and the "pebbles" are found in this clay, and 

 in the slightly weathered country rock, found at the southwest end 

 of the cut on the right side looking northeast. Those occurring 

 in the country rock, however, are less perfectly developed than 

 the others. The country rock is in the Great Smoky formation.^ 

 It is a greywacke and a weathered garnetiferous mica schist with 

 the garnets largely altered to iron oxide. The schist is feldspathic. 

 The rocks strike N. 20-45° E. and dip 50-60° S.E. 



There are comparatively few or no signs of metamorphism in the 

 rocks near Ellijay, which are extraordinary as compared with the 

 general regional metamorphism, and such profound metamorphism as 

 appears is generally quite local in development. At the location under 

 discussion the rock has been so greatly crushed or subjected to such 

 intense pressure that it does not break into massive blocks bounded 

 by joint planes, but into long thin masses, resembling tapering lenses 

 or stretched pebbles, overlapping when en masse, with excessive 

 length as compared with their other dimensions. The illustration 

 in Mr. McCallie's article^ reveals the conditions well. At the south 

 end of the cut these masses appear to be composed chiefly of quartz, 

 and they will be found to crumble readily away from each other when 

 removed from the ledge. When these quartz masses resembling 

 stretched pebbles are thus separated, though some of the mica of the 

 country rock falls away from them, considerable of it still adheres. 

 Though many of these masses consist apparently of pure quartz, 

 some of them contain or are largely made up of the micaceous por- 

 tions of the country rock. All gradations between the two extremes 

 may be observed. It is a fact, however, that the great bulk of the best 



1 The same units have been chosen for mapping in the EUijay quadrangle as 

 were adopted by Keith in the Nantahala area to the north ("Nantahala FoHo, No. 143," 

 U.S. Geol. Survey, 1907). Of course the same scheme has not been adopted in its 

 entirety, for the obvious reason that some of the more marked Hthologic types die out 

 in passing to the southward. 



2 Journal oj Geology, XIV (1906), 56. 



I 



