13.— THE PHYSICAL AND BIOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE NAT- 
URAL OYSTER-GROUNDS OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 
BY BASHFORD DEAN. 
The following report deals with the character and conditions of the South Caro- 
lina. oyster-grounds, aiming from their study to point out the natural advantages 
offered by the State for successful oyster- culture. It is based upon observations and 
experiments made by the writer while attached as naturalist to the U. S. Fish Com- 
mission steamer Fish Hawk, during the investigations from December, 1890, to March, 
1891. An account of the region examined and maps representing the same will be 
found in the report of Mr. John D. Battle, entitled, “ Report on an Investigation of 
the Coast Waters of South Carolina with reference to Oyster-Culture.” 
I.— OYSTER LEDGES AND FLATS. 
The entire coast margin of the State, if the immediate ocean shores be excepted, 
is in the main well provided with natural beds. These, however, are strangely unlike 
the beds occurring naturally further northward, since in great part they are here found 
skirting the shore in fringing tidal reefs, living as much of their life in air as in water. 
Often at low tide the oyster ledges appear to the eye curiously like a low hedge of 
frosted herbage, grayish-green in color. A nearer view discloses branching clusters or 
clumps of oysters, densely packed together, whose crowded individuals now become 
modified or distorted according to their position on the cluster. The individuals that 
cap the cluster project upward like flat-tipped fingers, slender, narrow, and long, whose 
shape has given them throughout the South the names “ cat tongues,” “raccoon paws,” 
or “raccoons.” In many localities, as throughout the region of Skull Creek, the rac- 
coon ledges, continuing for ages to encroach upon the stream bed, have formed vast 
oyster flats, acres, sometimes miles, in extent. 
In the stream bed, or, indeed, below the low- water mark, oysters are rarely found, 
and whenever found are to be regarded as having fallen from the neighboring ledges. 
As so great a proportion of the State natural beds are raccoon or of raccoon origin., the 
formation and conditions of these interesting oyster colonies should first be examined. 
Ages ago, in South Carolina, the oyster lived under conditions that appear to 
have been more favorable than those of to-day. There can be but little doubt, from 
the evidence of shell marls and fossils of the phosphate deposit, that in ancient times 
there must have been a greater supply of fresh water entering gravel- bottomed bays 
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