348 W. C. Kerr—Action of Frost in the 
larger and wider accumulations which once filled up the val- 
leys and mantled over the hills and obliterated the features of 
a former topography. This conclusion is abundantly attested 
by numerous observations. 
igure 7 brings out another common feature,—the occur- 
rence of periods. in the deposits, or of several deposits one 
upon another. This section is taken from a gold placer in 
Brindletown, Burke County, near Morganton, at the foot of a 
1. little mountain, called the Pilot, the lower 
up to fifty feet. The same thing is shown 
in another placer mine on the same side 
of section of which is 
e 
—a coarse half-compacted conglomerate, which gives place, 
upward, to a bed of gray, or ash-colored earthy clay (2), six 
or eight feet thick, above which lies twenty-five to thirty feet 
of red gravelly earth (3), with a few small scattered quartz 
fragments. 
Figure 9 represents another similar deposit half a mile dis- 
tant from the last, the section being taken, as were the last two, 
in the gold mines of Col. J. ©. Mills, the last at the eastern 
base of the Pilot, and at a somewhat lower level. The two 
lower division lines, in this case also, are a little too sharp, 
the only distinct breach of continuity being found between the 
ruptly, and so binto ¢. In this section a and ¢ correspond to 
land 2 of figure 8, b being an interpolation, and furnishing 
