OUTLINES. 
135 
and drab, bluish and greenish clay slates, all dipping south eastward at 
an angle of 30° to G0°. About the foot of the mountain the quartzytes 
become gnoissoid. and in places occur coarse grits, and beds of chloritic 
and calcareous slates. The breadth of these rock at this point is G to 7 
or 8 miles ; but the greatest development of this series of rocks is seen a 
little further northeast, in the Linville Mountains, which are composed 
almost wholly of sandstones and quartzites of various degrees of meta- 
morphism, in some places almost or quite vitrified, and so jointed that 
the bedding is entirely obliterated. These quartzytes are sometimes 
slightly micaceous or chloritic, and sometimes flexible, — itacolumitic. 
The dip is very irregular and confused, but seems to be predominantly 
westward. Several. beds of compact, light-colored and grey limestone 
crops out along the western base of the mountain in the valley of North 
Fork, and almost to the head of it, the upper beds being on the west side 
of the valley. 
Linville River seems to occupy a rift in these slates, which is more 
than 1,000 feet deep, with precipitous, and in places, vertical walls on 
either hand. The mural mass of Table Rock, the jagged peaks of the 
Chimneys, &e., and the sharp top of ITawksbill, are all recurrences of the 
Linville quartzytes, with characters unchanged. 
Following northeastward along the line of these rocks, we find them 
recurring in the form of quartzytes, itacolumites, clay, micaceous, chlo- 
ride and taleoid slates in the various spurs of the Blue Ridge, and occa- 
sionally constituting the casteru escarpment of that chain in its south- 
ward bends, to Surry county, where these rocks cross into Virginia. At 
this point, in Fisher’s peak and the knobs of the Blue Ridge south of it, 
are ledges of hard and gnarled grey and glistening argillaceous and 
quartzo-argillaeeous and gneissoid slates, which are often specked witli 
magnetite and martite crytals ; and in Watauga and Caldwell these 
become martite schists, and again micaceous specular schists, which are 
rich ores of iron. 
But the most remarkable part of this belt, both for breadth and peculiar 
lithology, is found in the region of the Grandfather and Yellow Moun- 
sins, about the head waters of Toe River, Linville, Elk and Watauga. 
On upper Linville, and towards the base of the Grandfather and the head 
waters of Watauga, there are limited beds of argillaceous and hydra-mica 
slates and shales ; but the prevalent rocks are feldspathic and quartzose 
slates and grits, sometimes gneiss-like, and chloritic and epidotic schists, 
with epidosites, the latter sometimes enclosing bright red rounded grains 
of jasper. Along the high spurs of the Grandfather, to the northwest, — 
the Fellow Mountains, are large bodies of greenish epidotic sandstone, 
