1870.] 229 [Shaler. 



seems to be an instance of this confusion of names. In the largest 

 work which has yet been published on the geology of this region, the 

 " Report on the Geology of South Carolina, by Mr. Tuomey," the 

 tertiary rocks of the State are divided into Eocene, Miocene and 

 Pliocene, to suit the then newly proposed classification of Sir Charles 

 Lyell. The Eocene tertiary is described as occurring in two differ- 

 ent regions in two widely varying conditions. In the western part of 

 the State the section shows, first, beds of sandstone and grit; second, 

 beds of sand, gravel, and colored clays; third, siliceous clay; fourth, 

 silicified shells; fifth, beds of sand and iron ore. In the shore region 

 a great thickness of tolerably uniform marls is assumed as the equiva- 

 lent of this varied formation, the apparently not unreasonable view 

 of Mr. Tuomey being, that the difference in the position of these two 

 regions relative to the shore, has caused .the difference in the physical 

 character of the beds. The organic contents of the supposed identi- 

 cal beds in the east and west regions of the State, are as varied as 

 are their physical features. The fossils of the buhr-stone or western 

 beds, named in the list of Tuomey, are almost all Gasteropods and 

 Lamellibranchiates. The general character of these shells may be 

 accepted as rather more like the Eocene of Europe than any other 

 member of the tertiary series there, but their horizon has been deter- 

 mined, not by the comparison of the resemblances of the species, but 

 by the fact that all the species found in this association are extinct. 

 But although there is no apparent reason to question the position 

 assigned to the buhr-stone formation, there must be doubt concern- 

 ing the position of the beds of the shore region, which are placed as 

 contemporaneous with it. We have in the Santee beds an assem- 

 blage of fossils very different from those occurring in the buhr-stone, 

 and containing species such as the Zeuglodon cetoides, differing 

 widely from anything found in the latter formation. 



Still further to the east we have again in the marls of the Ashley 

 and Cooper Rivers other physical conditions, and an assemblage of 

 fossils which it is difficult to believe could have been deposited in the 

 same geological period as buhr-stone fossils. Nor can we suppose that 

 the one series of rocks was deposited far inland, and the other 

 near shore, for in the Ashley beds, as remarked by Mr. Tuomey, the 

 character of the fossils shows clearly that they could not have been 

 deposited far from the sea border. 



There does not seem the same reason for questioning the identity 

 of the Santee beds, and those found along the borders of the Ashley 



