DISTRIBUTION OF PYROPLASTIC ROCKS. 
Ill 
It continues in the direction to the Yadkin. This branch 
diverges to the southwest. Another begins near Oxford, Gran¬ 
ville county, and accompanies the trias and permian into 
South Carolina, where it apparently terminates again in Ches¬ 
terfield district. It has been asserted that the Permian system 
of sandstones appear in Georgia, about halfway between 
Savannah and Macon. If so, there can be no doubt of their 
being accompanied by this belt of trap. 
The interesting feature of this formation is the great extent 
of country it traverses. It is comparatively a narrow belt of 
rock, and hence it seems to have been ejected through a very 
long or continuous fissure; and it is not improbable that the 
fissure extended far beyond the visible belt of trap. The pali¬ 
sades are, for instance, upon this north and south line of 
fracture, which extends northerly through the valleys of the 
Hudson, Champlain, and St. Lawrence, in the range of Mont¬ 
real and Quebec. The trap rarely appears on this line between 
the Highlands and head of the Champlain valley. At this 
point trap begins to appear again, and with frequent repeti¬ 
tions down to port Kent. From this place onward to Montreal 
the disturbance of the rocks is much less, but at the latter 
place the phenomena justify us in regarding it as the center of 
a highly disturbed district. It may be traced onward to Quebec. 
It does not necessarily follow that this belt was fractured for 
400 miles north of the Highlands, in New York, at the time 
the eruption of trap forming the palisades took place, yet it 
probably was. This erupted mass ranges along this fractured 
belt; and if this belt extends to South Carolina, it is one of the 
longest lines of eruption east of the Rocky mountains. Admit¬ 
ting the fact of the continuity of this long line of fracture, we 
are led to look for some cause which determined its extent and 
direction. We have found a part of this belt to be occupied 
by trap and greenstone, and to form a very striking feature in 
its geology; but upon other parts of the belt, though the rocks 
are fractured, and very much disturbed, yet the eruptive rocks 
do not appear at the surface: for example, between the High- 
