ESS.A.Y 
ON THE 
GEOLOGY OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA. 
BY KEY. C. D. SMITH. 
I state briefly some facts as to the geological formations in the counties 
lying west of the Blue Ridge. This fleld is an interesting one to truly 
scientific minds. It is a fleld not to be understood and appreciated by 
hasty observations. Its features are bold, varied and primitive, while its 
extent stretches over an area of more than two hundred miles in length. 
To be understood it must be studied. In describing these rocky forma- 
tions, I shall adopt the terms used in the most approved text books, and 
those names and classifications used by learned and experienced geblogists, 
taking care to avoid all local names. I adopt this course because the 
rocks of this region lie in regular zones, and because the use of local names 
and classification would give the general reader a very inadequate idea of 
their general geological and lithological character. 
The rocks which are embraced in the area between the Georgia and 
South Carolina State lines and the State line of Tennessee belong to the 
Azoic and Paleozoic ages. The principal part of the rocksi n the main 
structural mass of the Blue Ridge are primordial. They are Azoic rocks 
proper and are, indeed, the oldest rocks upon the continent. True 
Gneissoid granite abounds in the principal mass of the Blue Ridge, which 
bears an air of the greatest antiquity. These oldest rocks are super-im- 
posed upon the regular Gneissic, Svenitic and Micacious beds which lie 
on the northwest, and these again upon the stratified beds of the Taconic, 
while the Taconic lie in the same order of superposition upon the lower 
Silurian and so on in the same order to the sub-carboniferous, where 
there is a general antictinal. These rocks are all turned upon their edges 
at a tolerably high angle with a general dip or inclination to the south- 
east. It is evident from these facts that the newer rocks here lie under 
the older and more primitive beds. On and along the southern slope of 
the Blue Ridge the Gneiss, Mica shales and Hornblend beds lie upon 
the granitic beds of the main mass of the ridge. I do not propose at this 
time to discuss the probable forces that acted in producing this order in 
which the rocks are found here. I proceed at once to the description of 
