OUTLINES. 
131 
of this belt are very much disturbed, — -broken, crumpled and folded, 
especially along the middle of the tract ; but the general strike is about 
N. 50° E., and the prevalent dip is S. E., at every possible angle, but 
generally between 10° and 60°. Along the median zone, however, for 
several miles, the prevalent dip is 1ST. W. 
Besides the minerals already mentioned incidentally, magnetic iron is 
of frequent occurrence, and may be set down as a characteristic mineral 
of the series ; one of tire largest iron beds in North America is found 
among the hornblende slates and syenytes of the iron (Smoky) Mountains 
in Mitchell ; and specular iron is also found occasionally. Copper pyrites 
exists in large bedded veins among the syenytes and hornblende slates of 
Jackson, Macon, Haywood. "Watauga and Ashe, and also sometimes in 
the grey gneisses and mica schists, as at Ore Knob and Peach Bottom, in 
Ashe and Alleghany. 
This mountain tract of Laurentian rocks contains between 3 and 4,000 
square miles of surface; which, added to the areas of the previous tracts, 
gives an aggregate of more than 20,000 square miles occupied by this 
formation, or nearly one-half the territory of the State. 
HUEONIAN. 
The next system in order of superposition follows in the true order of 
time, 'without break of geological continuity. By reference to the map at 
the end of the volume, it will be seen that the Huronian system, repre- 
sented by the apple-green color, occupies several disconnected areas, sep- 
arated by intervening tracts of the older and underlying formation. 
There are in fact 5 principal outcrops, with two or three subordinate ones, 
which may very properly be referred to one or another of the former as 
detached fragments of them. The most easterly of them lies against the 
first or Raleigh belt of Laurentian on the east, with an easterly dip ; and 
is mostly covered by the sands and gravels of the Qnarternary. The out- 
crops may be seen however along the bluffs of the streams and occasion- 
ally in jutting ledges on the swells between, from the Roanoke near Gas- 
ton to the Neuse about Smithfield and the mouth of Falling Creek, in 
Duplin. The rocks are quartzyte and clay slates, grey, light colored and 
drab and greenish. At some points the quartzytes are argillaceous, and 
at others as a few miles west of Smithfield it approaches a fine conglom- 
erate. The clay slates are occasionally Slightly hydro-micaceous. 
This series reappears on the west side of the Raleigh granite with an 
opposite or westward dip, quite steep at first at about three miles from 
the city, but gradually becoming less. The bottom beds are argillaceous 
