134 GEOLOGY OP NORTH CAROLINA. 
scribed, but has greater fertility. Two seams of coal have been 
observed in it, both on the North bank of the river, one in 
Rockingham, about four miles above Leaksville ; and the other 
in Stokes, opposite to the mouth of the Town Fork. 
64. Of the Transition and Slate Rocks. — These occupy a 
large space in North Carolina. The principal body of them tra- 
verses the State in a north-easterly and south-westerly direction, 
immediately west of the great sandstone formation, occupying a 
breadth of about 30 miles. From the South Carolina line, to a 
point nearly east from Pittsboro', in Chatham county, the slate 
is in immediate contact with the sandstone ; also passing under it 
and appearing on the opposite side, in Anson and Richmond. 
The sandstone, the more recent of the two, lies, in a trough, or 
depression in the slate. At the point mentioned, a body of gran- 
ite comes in, and separates the two through a distance of about 
eighteen miles ; after which they meet again near the ridge that 
divides the basin of the Cape Fear, from that of the Neuse, and 
continue to touch, nearly through the basin of the Neuse, to a 
point in Granville, three or four miles east of the Orange line, 
from whence, to where Grassy creek crosses the Virginia line, 
the slate is again bounded by granite on the east. The western 
boundary of the slate is granite throughout. Commencing near 
where Five Mile Creek passes the South Carolina line, it runs 
through Mecklenburg, by the Mouth of Dutch Buffalo, to the 
north-east corner of Cabarrus, thence by the mouth of Abbott's 
Creek, to a point nearly east and five or six miles distant from 
Lexington, thence to the south-east corner of Guilford, thence by 
Ruffin's Mills to the south-east corner of Caswell, thence east of 
Roxborough to a point in the Virginia line, a little west of the 
Person and Granville line. This formation includes of course, 
the western part of Granville, the eastern part of Person, the cen- 
tral part of Orange, more than half of Chatham, nearly the whole 
of Randolph, the whole of Montgomery, (what is sandstone ex- 
cepted,) the whole of Stanley, the south-eastern corner of David- 
son and Rowan, the north-western part of Anson, and south-west- 
ern of Mecklenburg. This body of slates forms a coating, and 
probably not a very thick one, upon a recent, imperfectly crys- 
talline, granite rock, on which it reposes. But the upper surface 
of the subjacent rock having been irregular, the granite at some 
points penetrates through the slates, and appears on the surface. 
The slates also send off tongues, or promontories beyond the lines 
just designated as their boundaries, and as no good could come of 
a minute examination of all these irregularities, they have in 
many cases been neglected. Nor is the passage from granite to 
slate, sudden and well defined, but through intermediate beds that 
are neither slate, nor granite, nor any other rock that has a name 
in the books. r J"hese anomalous masses also occupy sometimes 
a considerable space at the surface. 
This formation is of course composed like the rest of the 
