On the Low Country of North Carolina. 345 



tliey passed, they brought nothing with them to deposit in the 

 regions south of us— conclusive evidence is furnished by the 

 fact, that no where, on either hill or valley, have they left the 

 least trace of their action. They must have permitted some 

 small quantities of the sand and pebbles they were bearing 

 on, to settle down and remain behind, but none are to be found. 



Immediately east of the University of North Carolina, is a 

 bed of red sandstone, about twenty miles across ; immediately 

 west, a still broader bed of ancient transition rocks. This is 

 succeeded by a body of granite, not as I believe of the oldest 

 formation, and the granite by the gneiss and mica slate of the 

 Alleganies — about twenty-five miles of the extreme western 

 part of the State, still held by the Indians, belongs to the 

 transition argillite of Tennessee. Throughout the whole line 

 from the Hiwassee on the west, to the commencement of the 

 alluvial on the east, a distance of about four hundred miles, and 

 over all these formations, I have sought carefully for traces of 

 currents and of diluvial action and deposit, but have found 

 none. It is manifest that this entire region was originally 

 thrown up in the state of rock, that this rock has gradually 

 mouldered into the soil that now covers it, and that no for- 

 eign matters are mingled with it. Except in the beds of the 

 streams, the gravel is all sharp. There are no marks that a 

 flood of waters, holding any thing suspended, has ever pass- 

 ed over it, or that during the deluge, recorded in the Scrip- 

 tures, any thing was deposited upon it. 



That the low country was not formed by the sudden intro- 

 duction of the sand and gravel, that compose its strata,/rom 

 the quarter of the sea, or indeed from any quarter whatever, 

 conclusive evidence is furnished by the composition and as- 

 pect of the strata themselves. 



Passing by the shells, the appearance of which is alone de- 

 cisive of the point, we may remark that none of the recent 

 beds of fine clay occurring amongst the strata of the globe, 

 can have been produced by a cause that operated suddenly 

 and violently. They cannot be the effect of a rapid motion 

 of any kind, such as the rushing of a current, or the dashing 

 of waves upon the shore. Large bodies of clay are never 

 transported like sand in this way, or if this should be thought 

 possible, they will not be deposited in regular horizontal beds. 

 Wherever such beds are found, they prove incontestibly, that 

 over the spot where they now lie, waters rendered turbid by 

 the presence of particles of clay, which they held suspended 



Vol. XIIL— No. 2. 19 



