Piedmont Region.— The-average elevation is 700 feet, rising from 545 at Winnsboro to 989 feet at Greenville. It covers 10,245 square miles. Inexhaustible quantities of building granite of fine quality occur in Fairfield, New berry, Kershaw and other counties. Mica slate is found in Abbeyville and Anderson. The pe culiar soils known as the "flatwoods" of Abbey ville, and the "meadow lands" of Union, and also the "black jack flats" of Chester and York, are due to the weathering of extensive trap dikes in those localities. Lieber wrote in 1859, "above this line (the (fall line') most streams have some gold in their sands." Thirty-one gold mines were opened in the talc slates of Chesterfield, Lancaster, Abbeyville and Edge field counties. The Dorn Mine (now McCor mick), in the last-named county, has yielded $1.100,000. There were 19 gold mines in the mica slates of Spartanburg, Union and York counties. Gold production is about at its end, only $3,789 worth being produced in 1915. Eight other, chiefly gravel, deposits, are in Greenville and Pickens counties. Argentifer ous galena and copper are found in these mines, bismuth in quantity at Brewer Mine in Chesterfield County; iron in magnetic and specular ores in large quantity at Kings Mountain and elsewhere in Spartanburg and Union counties ; limestone in York, Pickens, Spartanburg and Laurens; in the latter county there are quarries of marble; feldspar m Pickens, Abbeyville, Anderson and Laurens; barytes on the Air Line Railroad in York; man ganese in abundance and purity at the Dorn mine, and in Abbeyville, York and Pickens; asbestos in Spartanburg, Laurens, York, Ander son and Pickens; spine! rubies in Pickens; tourmaline in York, Edgefield and Laurens; beryl in Edgefield and Laurens; corundum in Laurens; zircons in Abbeyville and Anderson; one diamond has been taken from the itacolu mite in Spartanburg.
Alpine Region.— The Alpine Region occu pies the extreme northwestern corner of Caro lina. It has an average elevation of 1,000 to 1,500 feet; Kings Mountain is 1,692 feet; Paris Mountain, 2,054 feet; Caesar's Head, 3,118 feet; and Mount Pinnacle, 3,426 feet. The mountains here often rise suddenly to their greatest height. The southeastern front of Kings Mountain is 500 feet in perpendicular height, Table Rock is 800 feet vertically above its southeastern terrace. The northwestern slopes descend gradually to ward the Blue Ridge Mountains. There would seem to have been in ages past some great fault or land slip here, producing the long southeast ern incline running down to the sea, and con tinuing under its waters for 100 miles to the Gulf Stream, where the 100-fathom depth sud denly sinks to 1,500 fathoms. The region cov ers 1,281 square miles.
Sands, clays, soft limestones and marls more or less unconsolidated characterize the coastal region. They range from the Cre taceous to the Tertiary period. In the Lower Pine Belt outcrops of the Cretaceous rocks are noted in the extreme southeastern corner of the State, and have been traced northward to Mars Bluff and Darlington, where it passes under the Buhrstone of the Eocene. Superim posed on these Cretaceous marls are the San tee marls. They belong to the Eocene and are composed of corals and gigantic oyster shells. Just above tide-water they pass under the Ash ley and Cooper marls, composed of many-cham bered cells (Foraminifera), sometimes of so fine and compact a structure as to fit them for building purposes. Fragments broken from
these marls and rounded by wave action form the phosphate rock of commerce. These nod ules contain 55 to 61 per cent of phosphate of lime and have been quarried at the depth of one to six feet; they are also found on the bot tom of the rivers, and on sea bottoms from North Carolina to Florida. The remains of the mastodon, elephant, tapir, horse, etc., are found mingled with them. Green sands con taining 4 to 6 per cent of potash in the form of glauconite also occur here. A sandy loam overlays the Santee (Eocene) marls of the Upper Pine Belt. In the northern portion these marls have been petrified and converted into Buhrstone. In the eastern part of the belt are outcrops of the Cretaceous, and occasional islands of Miocene marls. In the Sand and Red Hills, region no lime occurs, the Eocene marls having been converted into Buhrstone. The formations bear evidence of being littoral. Beds of lignite occur in Aiken and Chester field; kaolin and other commercial clays abound in this region. Above the °fall line" the rocks of the Piedmont country occur in the following order of superposition. On granite rests the gneiss, above them occur islands of greater or less extent of mica talc and clay slates, itacolu mite and limestones, left from the denudation to Which the region has been subiected for ages.
The rocks and minerals of the Alpine region correspond with those of the Piedmont.
Three considerable river systems take their rise in these mountains, and make their way southwardly to the sea. The eastern watershed of the Savannah is narrow, as is also the western watershed of the Pee Dee. The intermediate space occupying the larger portion of upper Carolina is crossed by seven rivers, the Saluda, Tyger, Reedy, Pacolet, Broad, Catawba, Wateree, with their numerous affluents uniting to form the Santee River. A line across the State from Augusta, Ga., to Columbia and thence to Cheraw in the east, is known as the "fall line?) On crossing this line the streams pass from the crystalline rocks, the granites and slates of upper Carolina, into the softer strata of the tertiary marls of the low country. Above the °fall line the average slope of the streams is five feet to the mile, and they are available for the development of water powers to an extent estimated at 1,000,000 horse power. Below the fall eight other rivers, the North and the South Edisto, the Combahee, the Coosawhatchie, Black River, Cooper, Ash ley, Waccamaw, are found with a fall of one to one and one-half feet to the mile. The numer ous creeks, however, that feed these rivers, rising themselves in the elevation of the Sand Hills and Red. Hills, have a much more rapid fall. Horse Creek, for instance, emptying into the Savannah below Augusta, furnishes in the length of 10 miles power for the Vaucluse, Graniteville, Langley, Aiken and Clearwater factories, without being fully utilized. The rivers are navigable to the °fall line for steamboats not exceeding 200 tons burden, and in all there is from 700 to 800 miles of naviga tion above tidewater.