160 
GEOLOGY OY NORTH CAROLINA. 
fringe of sonnds that line the whole coast, as well as the extensive peat 
beds that make np a large part of the so-called swamp lands. 
In addition to these may be mentioned again the alluvions, especially 
those along the lower reaches of the great rivers, in their course through 
the great eastern plain to the sea. The flood-plains of some of these 
rivers are several miles wide for considerable stretches, as of the Roanoke 
in Bertie and Washington counties, and of the lower Cape Fear and Tar. 
Over these river flats, of course, alluvial deposits are still accumulating. 
Islands are also forming near the mouths of some of the rivers, and off- 
shore accumulations are making along the margins of the sounds, and wide 
flats and shoals which gradually become marshes. Tens of thousands of 
acres have in this way been added to the land surface from the sounds 
and bays within a generation or two, and the great sounds themselves are 
visibly shallowing and narrowing, and will Anally, and in no very long 
period of time, become mere continuations of the channels of the rivers 
which empty into them. 
Human . — Some evidences of the presence of prehistorical races of 
men in this State have been given incidentally in another connection. 
The Mound Builders seem to have carried on extensive mining opera- 
tions for plate mica in the mountain region. From the great extent and 
number of their works, open cuts and tunnels, they must have occupied 
the country for ages. There are enormous heaps of excavated earth 
which, as well as the excavations, are covered with the largest forest trees 
two or three hundred years old, and with the decayed trunks of a former 
generation. 
There are also a few mounds in the river valleys further west, one in 
Macon county of a circular form, 25 feet in height, with a level top about 
50 feet in diameter. 
There are many beds of kitchen middens also along the shores of the 
bays and sounds, composed chiefly of oyster shells with fragments of 
bones and of pottery : some of them 3 to 5 feet thick and covering an 
acre or more. These however, were no doubt made by the Indians. 
And there are throughout the State relics of these tribes, arrowheads, 
stone hatchets, soapstone vessels, and a few implements of copper and of 
iron have been discovered. These relics are generally found buried in 
the river bottoms, where they were either interred with the bones of 
their owners, or, perhaps quite as often, silted up by river floods, j ust as 
they were left in their settlements and camps, which were generally in 
such situations. An extensive camp or village of this sort was brought 
to light a few years ago in the valley of Dan River, on the plantations of 
Judge Settle and Gov. Reid. An unusual freshest cut extensive chan- 
