340 On the Secondary and Tertiary Formations. 



the same recent shells, and water-cresses in greater abundance. 

 Bat the water, I noticed, was lukewarm, and one of the largest 

 of the streams, after running only about fifty yards, suddenly 

 disappeared under the limestone, and was no more seen. The 

 rock does not contain a great variety of fossil shells ; the most 

 abundant are some large Ostreas, of what species I know not, the 

 specimens being lost. On this account, too, I caruiot speak so 

 decidedly as I wished to have done of the quality of the lime- 

 stone, which ought certainly to be of some practical importance, 

 being on a river navigable by steamboats, and in a region where 

 lime bears a high price and wood is very cheap. A little enter- 

 prise and skill only are requisite to create an extensive business 

 here in the manufacture of lime. But though its good effects as 

 a manure force itself upon the notice of those who use the adja- 

 cent fields, still no attempts have been made to extend its use 

 farther than nature has seen fit to spread the rock, and the calca- 

 reous deposits formed from it. 



So on the Edisto, in Colleton district, this rock is equally 

 available, and equally neglected ; and though lime enough might 

 be made on these two streams to supply the whole of the eastern 

 parts of South Carolina and Georgia, at an expense not exceeding 

 fifteen cents a bushel, yet the inhabitants prefer to import their 

 lime from Thomaston, Maine, and pay at Charleston $2,00 per 

 cask, or when brought up to the neighborhood of these vast quar- 

 ries it sells for $3,00 per cask ! In Chester county, Penn., while 

 on the geological survey of that state, 1 have seen lime made 

 and sold for ten cents a bushel, where the natural facilities are 

 no greater than here. And when on the same business in Maine, 

 and employed at Thomaston in obtaining the statistics of the 

 lime business, I came to the conclusion that the southern states 

 must be remarkably deficient in limestone ; that notwithstand- 

 ing the difficulties the Thomaston people had to contend with, 

 in the high price of fuel, a bad harbor, that frozen up one third of 

 the year, and their remoteness, still they managed to monopolize 

 the lime business of the Atlantic coast, of the Gulf of Mexico, 

 and up the Mississippi to Natchez. The average cost of a cask 

 of lime at the wharves at Thomaston, was, as near as we could 

 estimate it, about seventy cents, and this included twenty cents 

 for the cask. But unfortunately the term " cask" represents no 

 definite measure. By law it should hold " forty gallons," five 



