1908 ] 
Flint-like Slate Near Chapel Hill 
3 
Albert Williams, Jr, 1 writing in 1888, stated that novaculite 
was quarried on an extensive scale a few miles west of Chapel Hill. 
In his monograph on the Arkansas novaculite, published in 
1892, L. S. Griswold 2 cites the above, references to Olmstead and 
Albert Williams, Jr. This writer, in the course of a description of 
that type of novaculite known as the “Arkansas Stone”, says, 
“The only other stone in this country which resembles the 
Arkansas Stone and is worked, is that of North Carolina, but 
the greasy talcose appearance of the latter suggests that its 
internal structure differs from that of the true novaculite.” 
H. B. C. Nitze 3 , in 1896, describing the rocks of the Carolina 
Slate Belt, writes thus under the heading, “Quartz Rocks — The 
Volcanic Series” : 
“The crypto- crystalline varieties of quartz (flint, chert, horn- 
stone, agatized, chalcedonic) are of especial interest, and warrant 
a careful consideration. It is again deplored in this connection 
that the present report did not allow the time for a microscopic 
study of the thin sections. Such cherty, flint-like masses have 
been described from the Sam Christian, Moratock, Silver Valley 
and Hoover Hill mines. It is at present the opinion that these 
rocks belong to the class of ancient (pre-Cambrian) acid volcanics, 
and in many respects analogous to, and probably contemporaneous 
with, similar rocks of South Mountain in Maryland and Pennsyl- 
vania, whose discovery was first announced by the late Dr. Geo. 
H. Williams 4 . Miss Florence Bascom 5 has described the origin, 
devitrification and structure of the acid types of these rocks. Dr. 
Williams 6 has outlined the general distribution of the ancient vol- 
1 Mineral Resources of the United States, Calendar year 1887, Washing- 
ton, 1888, p. 772. 
2 Annual Report of the Geological Survey of Arkansas for 1890, vol. 3, 
1892, Whetstones and the Novaculites of Arkansas, pp. 21 and 22. 
3 North Carolina Geological Survey, Bull., No. 3, Gold Deposits of North 
Carolina, by H. B. C. Nitze and G. B. Hanna, 1896, pp. 37-38. 
4 The Volcanic Rocks of the South Mts. in Pa. and Md., Am. Jour. Sci., 
vol. 44, Dec., 1892, pp. 482-496. Scientific American, Jan. 14, 1893. 
5 Journal of Geology, vol. I, 1893, pp. 813-832. 
6 Ibid. vol. 2, 1894, pp. 1-31. 
