THE GLACIAL PERIOD. 



229 



which their modern representatives are the merest pigmies. 

 Even in regions far south of the limits reached by the ice-sheet 

 01 the north, great deposits, and wide-spread sheets of angular 

 debris, rock -rubbish, and coarse gravel, are found occupying 

 positions where no such deposits are now taking place, and 

 which cannot possibly have been formed under present con- 

 ditions. Very often remains of an ancient soil, with leaves, 

 fruits, and stumps of trees in situ, togther with elytra of beetles, 

 squirrel -gnawed hickory- nuts, etc., are found buried under 

 depths of 15 or 20 feet of these superficial accumulations in 

 North Carolina, where they have been studied by the State 

 Geologist, Mr. W. C. Kerr. 1 They often mask to a considerable 

 extent the contour of the underlying strata, so that the present 

 ravines are excavated partly in the superficial drifts, and partly 

 " along or across the crests of the old buried hills and rocky 

 ledges." Such is the general character of the gold-bearing beds 

 which are extensively spread over the flanks and low ridges 

 of the Uwharrie Mountains. Their position and the carry of 

 their included rock-fragments, some of which have travelled six 

 miles, shows that they must have descended from the mountains, 

 " at whose bases or on whose lower and gentle inclines they are 

 found." According to Mr. Kerr, the force which impelled 

 them cannot have been water, — " neither are they moraines — 

 accumulations at the base of descending ice -masses." They 

 " have crept down the declivities of the hills and mountains," 

 he says, " exactly as a glacier descends an alpine valley, by 

 successive freezing and thawing of the whole water-saturated 

 mass, both the expansion of freezing and gravitation contribut- 

 ing to the downward movement ; and with each thawing and 

 advance the embedded stones and gold particles dropping a 

 little nearer the bottom. If these beds are followed down the 

 slopes into the valleys and bottoms of the streams to the flood- 

 plain, they will be found to have changed character with every 

 rod of advance, all the gold having been dropped either on or 

 near the foot of the slopes, the pebbles being more exclusively 



1 Report of the Geological Survey of North Carolina, vol. i. p. 156. 



