TRANSITION AND SLATE ROCKS. 137 
at the surface, there may be immense bodies of ore below. The 
Conrad hill, five miles east of the lead and silver mine, rich in 
gold and affurding some copper, belongs rather to the recent prim- 
itive, presently to be noticed. 
For the time when this vast body of slate rocks was formed, we 
must go back to the earliest ages of the world ; if not to the time 
when the present ocean hung as an atmosphere of vapor around 
a glowing mass of rock ; to another inconceivably ancient, when 
the whole was still too hot to be the abode of organized beings. Re- 
specting the manner in which the materials of particular strata were 
produced during such a condition of things, it is useless to speculate. 
The slate of the western part of Anson, passing under the sand- 
stone, reappears in the southern part of the county, on the waters 
of Thompson's creek, and extending under the sand of the terti- 
ary, forms the rapids in the Pedee just above the South Carolina 
line. It is also in the bed of Mark's creek in Richmond, and in 
the Northern part of the county, on Mountain creek, after having 
passed under the sandstone, near the Grassy Islands. 
A formation having so intimate a resemblance to that just describ- 
ed, that it may be conjectured not merely to be of the same age, but 
to have been produced by the same causes, traverses the counties 
of Wayne, Nash, and Halifax. It is very extensively covered by 
the sand, especially on the high grounds, but has been laid bare 
along the banks, and in the beds of the creeks and rivers, so that 
its limits may be assigned with tolerable accuracy. It is on both 
sides of the Neuse above the Roundabout in Wayfie, in the bed of 
Falling creek, and at Coxe's bridge : its lower limit crosses the 
Cotentney at some distance above Cobb's Mill, (at,and below the 
mill, the rocks are granite ;) the Tar near Strickland's bridge, 
and passing about midway between Nashville and the Falls of 
Tar, crossing Fishing creek at some distance above Enfield, it 
reaches the Roanoke between Weldon and Gaston. On the west, 
the slate approaches very near to Franklin and Wake, but hardly 
enters those counties. Its width on the old Stage road from Ra- 
leigh to Halifax is about 12 miles, but it is much narrower on the 
Roanoke, and may thin out in that direction, so as not to enter 
the State of Virginia. The only metals that have been found 
within the limits of this formation are gold and iron. 
There is a third body of transition slate rocks in the western 
and north-western part of the State, adjacent to Tennessee. At 
the extreme west, more than half the county of Cherokee is be- 
yond the boundary of the primitive ; which crossing the Tennes- 
see river at a point below Franklin in Macon county, approaches 
the State line as it advances towards the north-east, and falls in 
with it in the western part of Yancey, but a few miles from this, 
a long projection, or tongue, from the formations of the western 
slates, extends quite across the Alleghanies, to the bank of the 
Catawba in Burke. Linville river and the North Cove, run their 
whole course in this formation, which includes also the head wa- 
