turpentine, &c., untouched, except a little rafted down the Little Pee Dee. There is a mill at Red Bluff, on the Little Pee Dee; the river here has a width of fifty-five feet, a depth of six feet, and a current of three miles an hour. Crops, one thousand pounds seed cotton (many farms yield a bale per acre), and fifteen bushels corn. Farm wages, forty cents to sixty cents a day; one-half of the field work done by whites. Little land offered for sale; prices range from five dollars to forty dollars an acre. Rent, in money, is six dollars an acre, or one-third of the crop.

CHAPTER V.

THE RED HILL REGION.

LOCATION.

The very gradual slope of the upper pine belt having attained an elevation of two hundred to two hundred and fifty feet above the sea level, an irregular and somewhat interrupted line of high hills is encountered. These hills rise two to three hundred feet above the plane of the upper pine belt in the distance of a few miles, and not unfrequently this elevation is attained in traversing a few hundred yards. To the south and east extensive views over the gentle and irregular slope of the lower country are exposed from the summit of these declivities. To the north and west a sort of table land stretches back and gradually merges into the higher and more extensive sand hill' region of the State.

The general trend of these hills correspond pretty nearly with that of the other regions of the State. Starting on the Savannah river near Hamburg, they extend across the southern and western portion of Aiken and the northern townships of Barnwell counties. Following the northern boundary of Orangeburg, they acquire their greatest width in that county around Fort Motte, near the confluence of the Congaree and the Wateree rivers. West of the Santee river their course is more to the north, and they constitute that remarkable line of hills traversing Sumter county, long known as the "High Hills of Santee." Included in this region is also a body of lands in Edgefield county, known as the "Ridge,” which lie along the Augusta and Charlotte railroad. Although the latter are above the outcrop of the granite rocks, being continuous with the red hills, and resembling them closely in physical features and soil, they are described with them.

While these red hills form a well marked belt across the State below the sand hills, from the southwestern part of Aiken county to the north

eastern corner of Sumter, they are not continuous, but are interrupted at greater or less intervals by the protrusion of the sand hills. Mills' description of them east of the Santee river will give an idea of how this occurs. He says, "they take their rise about nine miles north of Nelson's ferry on the Santee, and form that fine body of brick mould land (3d Sup. Dist., E. D. 14 and 15) in the Richardson settlement. After continuing eight miles, they become suddenly sand hills a little above Manchester. At the end of eleven miles they again become red land, which continues to Buck creek, nine miles above Statesburg. These hills up to this point appear to hang over the Wateree swamps, but now they diverge and turn to the northeast, with one ridge in the middle forming a backbone; breaking off into hills towards the Wateree, and sloping off gradually towards Black river. At Buck creek the hills again become sandy, which gradually increases for fifteen or sixteen miles, to Bradford Springs; a little above this place they join the sand hills of the middle country." If these alternations were carefully traced it is probable they would be found to be due to removal by denudation of the red clay loam from the slopes of sand and gravel that rise in the sand hills. For the siennacolored clay loam, characteristic of this region, seldom has a depth greater than twenty feet, and is underlaid by beds of sand and gravel.

GEOLOGICAL FEATURES.

The red hill region belongs to the buhr-stone formation of the eocene. It presents a series of four quite dissimilar and well marked strata. Commencing with the superior, or more recent, these are:

1st. Beds of red sienna-colored siliceous clay, having a thickness of fifteen to thirty feet, and containing fragments of buhr-stone. It was the observation by Mr. Tuomey of the passage of these clays under the marl and green sand formations of the Charleston basin, at the Belle Broughton place, on Halfway swamp, in Orangeburg county (E. D. 150), which satisfied him that Mr. Lyell had erred in supposing that the buhr-stone overlaid the calcareous beds in South Carolina. This observation settles a point of considerable practical importance. For as the buhr-stone underlies and forms the floor of the lime formations of the eocene, no marl beds need be looked for above the line of its occurrence.

2d. Beds of coarse red and yellow sands, having a thickness of thirty to sixty feet. In these beds are sometimes found, at a depth of fifty feet, crystals of rutile, either lying loose among the sands or imbedded in rounded masses of quartz or felspar, water-worn by still quite perfect. pyramidal crystals of quartz an inch in length, are also found among these sands.

3d. Masses of buhr-stone, composed of silicified shells and other organic remains of the eocene. Among these shells gasteropoda predominate, which, together with the presence of land shells, and shells of mollusks which live in marshes (Auriculae), indicate the literal character of the formation. The leaves of oak, beech and willow trees, silicified or converted into lignite, were found here by Mr. Toumey. On Cedar creek, in Aiken county, there are beds of buhr-stone thirty feet in thickness, and at several points between this locality and the Savannah river on the west, and the Santee and Congaree on the east, there are extensive outcrops of this mate rial, from which mill-stones of excellent quality, equal to the best French buhr, have been quarried. In the southwestern corner of Aiken county, on Hollow creek (E. D. 16), beds of lignite occur, underlaid by clay that was used by the ordinance department during the late war for the manufacture of fire-proof crucibles, and pronounced equal to the best Stourbridge clay for that purpose. Similar beds of lignite are found in Chesterfield county, on Whortleberry branch, and at Mr. Croghan, underlaid by clay of the same character.

4th. Beds of a white siliceous rock, varying from a laminated siliceous clay to a hard rock, having a jointed structure, breaking with a conchoidal fracture, and resembling menilite. This curious rock has been traced from near Aiken C. H. to the northern part of Clarendon county. In the latter county there is a remarkable occurrence of it on the public road just north of Gov. Manning's residence (3d Sup. Dist. E. D. 15). On the head waters of Congaree creek this rock is sawed into blocks, fashioned with an axe, and used for building chimneys. It resists disintegration well, and its extreme lightness facilitates its carriage and handling.

Below the series of strata thus described are the great beds of loose. sand, intermingled with kaolin and variously colored clays, which rise into the extensive sand hill region, lying north of the red hills.

SOILS.

The reddish loam of this region presents an appearance somewhat similar to that of the soils derived from the hornblende rocks in the upper country, but it is not so tenacious and waxy. Although when not cultivated it becomes very hard in dry weather, in wet weather, owing to the large amount of sand it contains, the intervals when it can not be worked are short. Vegetable matter rots rapidly in it, and for this reason long manures (as composts) are better adapted to it than commercial fertilizers. The former are rapidly incorporated and well retained, and there is no soil that responds so well or is so capable of great improvement under treatment with stable and lot manures as these. Worked without manure they rapidly consume themselves and become unproductive.

The following analyses of typical soils in this region were made by Dr. Eugene A. Smith, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, for the 10th United States

1.982

1.444

Water and organic matter.

Hygoscopic moisture absorbed at 80° Fah...

These samples were taken uniformly to the depth of twelve inches on the table land in Amelia township, Orangeburg county, about three miles below the junction of the Wateree and Congaree rivers, from the place of J. Peterkin, Esq. The three hundred and seventy-five acres in cotton on this place made, in 1879, two hundred and fifty bales of cotton. No. 1 is from woodlands never cleared; the growth, large red oak and hickory, with a sprinkling of very large short leaf pine. No. 2 is from a field that has been planted for more than one hundred years; having on it a crop of about twelve hundred pounds of seed cotton to the acre when the sample was taken. The field had received only cotton seed and commercial fertilizers as manures for a number of years. Prof. Toumey, in his survey of South Carolina, published in 1848, gives the following analyses of these soils:

No. 1.

No. 2.

No. 3.

Potash and soda..

Water and loss

8