VO!.. IV., NO. 18.
IMNEIIUHST, N. C., MAR. 8, 1901.
PRICK T1IKKK CKNTS
TIIUKK SCENES.
Tin- wild, bright hair of the morning streamed,
From under the dusky hood of night;
On (lie gleaming sand n young man stood,
liv tin? glittering sea waves Hashing bright.
The' lido ('nine steadily creeping in
C.'iiiic steadily tramping over the sand;
And over the glimmering, purple sea,
. A ship sailed from the land.
It was golden noon and an older man,
liy the glistening sea waves stood alone,
And the turn of the tide; 'twas ebbing out,
With a restless, angry shuddering moan.
He looked away o'er the wrinkled waves,
For a beautiful ship, witli M ings of white;
The sea went up, the sky eaine down,
And never a ship in sight.
The new moon launched her pearly boat,
From the edge of the twilight's silver shore,
And the dusky banners of night blew out
( 'or the glow of the sunset's crimson door.
An old man lay, with streaming hair,
When the tide forever had left the strand;
The wreck of a ship came drifting in,
And lay on the shining sand.
Kxrhanye.
GEOLOGY IN NORTH CAROLINA.
Kven t lie casual observer who travels
across i he State of North Carolina from
its eastern .shores to its western boundary
will see that when he has gone about
half way he passes from a legion which
is very level or irently undulating, and
the surface of which is covered with
sand and loam soils from which hard
rocks are entirely absent, to another, the
surface of which becomes more and more
lil 1 1 until it culminates in mountains in
t te western portion of the Slate, and the
sil of which is more or less mingled
with the hard granite and slaty rocks
from which they have been formed.
A little more traveling in this region
will he sutlicicnt to indicate that the
geologic formations of the eastern half
of lite "State, which has been designated
a t lie Coastal Plain region, are radically
uill'erent and much younger than that of
the western half, embracing the Pied
mont Plateau and Mountain regions.
The boundary line which separates these
two great geologic divisions extends
from near Weldou on the north by way
of Kaleigh to near Wadesboro on the
H.uiluvest.
In age instead of being contiguous the
areas are widely separated; the forma
tion covering the Coastal Plain being
one of the most recent, while those of
Piedmont Plateau (excepting the
'""'Kid red sandstone or Trias areas)
'"ig among the oldest.
Hie Coastal Plain region, along its
tt'-leni borders contains the sounds,
!".vs, the sand dunes and ridges, the
s" "ps and marshes and other charac
' ;'-:tics of a seashore region. Further
U "Hi it is generally level, and has more
ipland and less of marsh. Toward
!! - western boundary the swamps nearly
'i'lite disappear, the upland predomi
1 ;'''s, the surface becomes undulating
;,: 1 mn hilly in place, and soils which
! '-her eastward were composed of fine
1,1 ami silt, along the western border
of this region contains a. larger propor
tion of coarse sand or1 gravel mingled
with claj . ,
Along the banks of such rivers as the
Cape Fear and Roanoke where these
streams have cut down through the sur
face and left the high steep bluft's the
material composing half a dozen geologic
formations are exposed to view, the old
est the Potomac gravel, sands and clays,
lying at the bottom on the irregular sur
face of granite and slates; cretaceous
sands and clays; tertiary (eocene and
miocene) marls and clays; the Lafayette
yellowish and brownish sands and loams;
and the Columbia sands, gravels and
clays, lying one successively above the
other the last of these, I lie youngest of
all, being on top- Along the western
border of these Coastal Plain formations
occasional outcrops of hard granites and
number of years, and can be worked
with the equal success on the adjoining
Hermitage property Other phosphate
deposits have been found in Duplin, Pen
der, Onslow and Brunswick counties.
In the Piedmont Plateau region, the
geology is much more complex. There
are, however, two narrow belts of com
paratively recent rocks; triasic or red
sandstone. The more eastern of these
two belts extending from Oxford, in
Granville . county, across the State
through portions of Wake, Durham,
Chatham, Moore,1 Montgomery, Rich
mond and Anson counties, has a maxi
mum width of about 15 miles. In this
formation are found the coal deposits of
Moore and Chatham counties and the
valuable beds of red, gray and brown
sandstone which are described more fully
under head of coal and of building stone.
i. S$A
VIEW IX PINEIIURST, LOOKING TOWARD THE CAROLINA.
slates are exposed along the beds of
streams where the once overlying sands
and clays have been washed away, but
besides these no large masses of hard
rock are to be found in this region other
than the limited beds of limestone which
are exposed along the banks of the
streams in a number of eastern counties,
especially in the southern portion of the
State. '
In these southeastern counties, the
limestone is exposed at the surface along
the banks of the streams in a large num
ber of localities, and this rock may be
used for the making of lime, maeadauiiz-in"-
roads, and in some cases it will do
for building purposes. In a few places,
as in the neighborhood of Castle Ilaynes,
New Hanover county, this limestone
contains numerous phosphate pebbles
and over considerable areas -the lime
stone has dissolved away and left the
p'losphate pebble in form of phosphate
o-ravel, which has been worked for a
The more western of these two belts
is much more limited in area, extending
from the Virginia line across portions of
Rockingham and Stokes counties, and
having a maximum width of four or five
miles.
The older erystaline rocks, (granites,
gneisses and slates), extend in belts of
varying width and length obliquely
across the State, having a general north
east and southwest course. The most
marked of these is the great slate belt
which extends across from Virginia,
through Person,-Orange, Chatham, Ran
dolph, Stanley, Union and adjoining
counties. It has a maximum width of
'some forty miles; the rocks are every
where folded or broken, and tilted; and
are penetrated by numerous dikes and
veins ; many of the latter being impreg
nated with gold bearing ores. And in
the western part of this slate belt, espe
cially in Davidson and Cabarrus coun
ties, the gold ores have associated with
them ores of silver, lead, zinc and cop
per. The regjon is one of hills and val
leys and rapid streams, along which
have been developed numerous excellent
water powers. , Just west of this slate
belt lies a belt of granite and oilier kin
dred rocks ; extendingacross the State;
having a width varying from ten to
twenty miles. These rocks are also
penetrated by. numerous veins which
carry gold' bearing ores; and in some
cases, especially in Guilford . county,
these are also highly impregnated with
copper oresi and in some places tills
granite belt, as well as the slate belt,
contains valuable deposits of iron ore.
Lying west of this granite' belt and
extending from it to the foot hiils of the
Blue Ridge, is a large area, the rocks of
which are of gneisses and granites, with
here and there more limited belU of slate.
The rocks are very old, belonging .prob
ably to the Archaen age. There tire often
deeply decayed, forming fertile loam
soils. In some places valuable and exten
sive beds of granite are to be found. At
intervals throughout the entire region
the rocks are penetrated by quartz veins
which contain in many places gold bear
ing ores, the more noted gold bearing
areas of this region being those in east
ern Catawba, stbout the South Mountains
in Burke, McDowell and Rutherford
counties, and in the west part of Cald
well county. There are also in this
region valuable deposits of iron; notably
those in Stokes, Gaston, Macon and
Catawba counties. This region is exceed
ingly hilly, being penetrated by the
Brushy Mountains, south of the Yadkin,
and the South Mountains, south of the
Catawba river.
The geology of the mountain region is
perhaps fully as complicated as that of
the Piedmont lMateau. Over' the larger
part of the region are to be found the
older erystaline rocks, greatly folded
and turned on their edges; and they con
tain at intervals valuable deposits of iron
oie; notably magnetic iron ores in the
region about Cranberry in Mitchell
county; in Ashe and Madison counties,
and in a number of places these rocks are
also penetrated by veins carrying gold,
silver and copper bearing ores. Along
the line of the Blue Ridge and again
along the line of the great Smoky Moun
tains are narrower belts of rocks, belong
ing to what has been designated the
Ocoee period. The age of these is not
known, though it is certain that these
rocks are much younger than the slates
and gneisses which have just been
described. These rocks of the Ocoee
formation contain also in places deposits
of minerals, especially the marbles and
'brown iron ores of Cherokee county. In
this region, as in the Piedmont Plateau,
the rocks are decayed to a considerable
depth, thus producing deep soils which
vary in character from sandy and
gravelly loam of those containing a large
proportion of clay in. regions where the
rock itself contains large proportion of