34 
or ARGILLACEOUS SCHISTUS OR CLAT SLATE, 
Micajah Coxe’s in Wayne. There is also a small formation of 
argillite about Nash court-house, and extending from thence in a 
north-easterly direction towards Fishing creek, probably includ¬ 
ing Dozier’s gold mine, and connected also under the sand with 
that at Coxe’s. The western part of the westernmost county in 
the state, (Cherokee) contains much argillite, as does the tract 
stretching thence towards Virginia along the border of Tennessee. 
Flinty Slate makes its appearance four or five miles west of 
the University on the road leading over Mount Willing, where 
it is porphyritic—at the Great Falls of the Yadkin, and other 
places in the transition formation. It is much harder than ar¬ 
gillite containing a larger proportion of quartz or silica. 
Whet Slate or NovacuUte, is obtained of a good quality six 
and a half miles west of the University, and in the northern part 
of Chatham on the west side of Haw riter. In these localities 
it evidently contains a quantity of magnesia, as is slated by Bake- 
well to be the fact with regard to this variety of slate. 
“TVje far-famed illustrious, Grau-Wucce,” or Gray-Wacke, 
is described by Jamieson as “ composed of irregular or other 
portions of quartz, feldspar, Lydian-slate, and clay-slate, cemented 
together by means of a basis or ground of the nature of clay-slate, 
which is often highly impregnated with silica, thus giving the 
mass a considerable degree of hardness. The i.mbedded portions 
vary in size, but seldom exceed a few inches in breadth and thick¬ 
ness.” Cleaveland says they pass from nodules one foot in dia¬ 
meter, to grains which are "Scarcely perceptible to the naked eye. 
“ When the imbedded portions become very small, the rock as¬ 
sumes a slaty structure and forms gray-wacke slate. When the 
grains almost entirely disappear and the rock is principally com¬ 
posed of clay-slate, it is called transition clay slate.” 
We have many rocks amongst our transition strata, and in our 
immediate neighborhood, which answer well to Jamieson’.s defi¬ 
nitions ; but they are probably more ancient than the rock bearing 
the name of grau-wacce in Germany, and have a different aspect. 
They hear little resemblance to the gray-wacke of the Allegha- 
nies. It is perhaps better to refer them to the Conglomerates— 
a convenient class, admitting almost any rock constituted of the 
fragments of older formations. 
’ Gray-wacke, especially the slaty variety, is extensively dis¬ 
tributed through the crust of the globe. It is found in Ger¬ 
many, constituting a considerable part of the celebrated Hartz 
mountains, in the Alps, in Scotland, in the United States about 
Boston, and in that part of the Alleghanies which lies west of the 
primitive. It abounds in the metallic ores. The gray-wacke 
of the Hartz yields silver, ]iarts of that within the limits of the 
United States are rich in the ores of iron. 
Of the Conglomerate Hocks, the strata about Barbee’s mill, 
composed of pebbles of quartz, hornstone, siliceous, and clay- 
slate, and other substances cemented by finer particles or a ho- 
