and the swamps are on the east banks of these streams, or as it would be stated from observations on the sea islands, the short slopes face north and east, and the long slopes south and west. The contours of the slopes throughout the tertiary plain conform generally to this rule, and may be accounted for in this way.

PHYSICAL FEATURES.

In approaching the coast from the sea about the time the white caps of the first breakers are seen, a long, low line of smooth, hard, sandy beach, for the most part of a snowy whiteness, makes its appearance. Immediately inland from the beach swell the undulating ridges of blowing sand, ripple-marked by the action of the wind, in striking similarity to the wave marks of water.

Here the palmetto meets you, standing often solitary and alone, a conspicuous landmark in the picture. Beyond rise the dark green turrets of the pine, beneath which a tangled growth of myrtles and vines is found. Sometimes more than one ridge of sand hills, with an average elevation of ten or fifteen feet, must be traversed before the borders of the salt marsh are. reached. The salt marshes, their stiff, green reeds rising out of the black ooze visible at low tide, and at the flow apparently floating on the 'water, with here and there a stray palmetto or a group of under-sized live oaks, their limbs covered with the long, gray moss, form the scarcely varying framework of all landscapes among the sea islands. Everywhere these marshes are penetrated by salt rivers and creeks of greater or less width and depth, and surround islands varying from a few acres to many square miles in area. These islands attain a height of ten to fifteen feet-rarely of twenty-five or thirty-above high tide. The mean rise and fall of the tides is 6.9 ft. at the mouth of the Savannah river; 6.7 ft. at Port Royal; 5.1 ft. at Charleston harbor, and 3.5 ft. at Georgetown entrance, showing a marked diminution as you advance northeast along the coast. The influence of the tide extends to a distance of thirty miles in a direct line from the sea, up the Savannah river, and about fifteen miles up the Santee. Salt water, however, usually ascends the Santee river only about two miles, and even when the current of the river is diminished in seasons of great drought, not more than four miles. Up Georgetown bay it reaches farther, and is sometimes injurious to the crops at a distance of fourteen miles. What has been said of the Santee in regard to fresh and salt water, is true to nearly the same extent of the Savannah river.

SOIL

The soil of the sea island consists, for the most part, of a fine, sandy loam. This soil rests on a subsoil of yellow sand or yellow clay, of fine

texture and deepening in color, sometimes to red. These clays give a yellow hue to the otherwise gray surface, which is noticed by Mr. Seabrook as indicating lands peculiarly adapted for the production of the silky fibre of long staple cotton. Besides these soils there are numerous flats, or fresh water swamps, known as bays; here and there a few of these have been reclaimed by drainage; the soil is a black vegetable mould of great fertility, resting on fine blue clay and marl. To a very limited extent. the salt marsh has also been reclaimed, but as yet agriculture has availed itself so little of the vast possibilities in this line, that the chief value of the salt marsh attaches to its use in furnishing forage and litter for stock and inexhaustible material for the compost heap. Low as these lands lie, they are susceptible of drainage. The following analyses will indicate more in detail the character of the soils:

(1) Is soil from northeast end of James island, furnished by Elias Rivers, Esq., for analysis, to Dr. Eugene A. Smith, of Tuscaloosa, Ala., and may be taken as a specimen of the less sandy soils of the sea islands. Such land will yield three hundred pounds of long staple lint one year with another.

(2) Is by Prof. C. U. Shepard, of Charleston, of soil from Mr. J. J. Mikell's place on Edisto island, famous for having long and profitably produced the finest grade of sea island cotton, and may be considered as a representative soil.

(3) Is also by Prof. C. U. Shepard, being an analysis of an air-dry specimen of salt marsh.

These analyses will serve to correct serious errors in statements as to the poverty of sea islands, made by J. B. Lyman and J. R. Sypher, in a

work on cotton culture, published by Orange Judd & Co., New York. It is stated there (page 129) that a chemical analysis discloses the fact that the soil on an acre of sea island cotton land, taken to the depth of one foot, contains only fifteen pounds of phosphoric acid and twenty pounds of potash. By the above analyses, however, we find an average of more than one-tenth of one per cent. of phosphoric acid, and one-sixteenth of one per cent. of potash. Allowing a cubic foot of earth to weigh one hundred pounds, we would have on an acre to the depth of one foot four million, three hundred and fifty-six thousand pounds, of which one-tenth of one per cent. would be four thousand, three hundred and fifty-six pounds, showing nearly two long tons of phosphoric acid instead of fifteen pounds to the acre. The potash, by the same calculation, would amount to five thousand and fifty pounds instead of twenty pounds to the acre. Thus, in the place of being barren for lack of these ingredients, each acre of the sea islands possess an amount which, if rendered available to plant growth, would suffice for the production of over eight million, six hundred and eighty thousand pounds of lint cotton, as they do not, by Jackson's and Shepard's analyses, constitute the one-twentieth of one per cent. of cotton fibre. Besides, the salt marsh materials for maintaining and developing the fertility of the soil abound throughout the coast region. There are numerous deposits of post pleiocene marl on the islands, as at Daton's swamp, Johnson's island, Stono creek, Edisto island, James Seabrook's island, Distant island, near Beaufort, and elsewhere. The banks of "raccoon oyster" shells, peculiar to this latitude, are found in abundance on this coast and furnish excellent and easily accessible stores of lime. These shells are also used for concrete for walls, known as tabby work. The walls of forts several centuries old attesting its durability. Roads and streets are also made smooth and hard by their use. Here, also, in the Stono, Edisto, Coosaw, Bull, Morgan, Johnson's, Beaufort and Broad rivers, and in other creeks and marshes, is found, and largely exported as a fertilizer to foreign lands, the phosphate rock. Experiments have also demonstrated that the fish, so numerous in these waters, may be caught and used for manures.

CLIMATE.

Notwithstanding their proximity to the mainland, the sca islands enjoy in a high degree the equable climate peculiar to islands generally. The extremes of temperature are, as might be expected, greatest in the direction of low temperature, and the cold, which is sometimes injurious to the orange and olive trees, destroys, also, the germs of many insects, as of the cotton caterpillar, inimical to vegetation; and of more importance

still, it destroys the germs of disease, as of yellow fever and of numerous skin diseases that flourish in similar regions elsewhere, preventing them from becoming indigenous, and keeping them exotics forever, requiring yearly renewal from without.

Table I, at the end of Part I, presents the leading features of the coast climate, as preserved in the records of meteorological observations made at Charleston, S. C.

Notwithstanding the amount of rainfall and proximity to the sea, the climate is not excessively moist, as might be inferred. This is owing to the large number of clear days, averaging about two hundred and thirtyfive during the year, against an average of eighty-six days in which rain fell, and forty-four cloudy and rainless days. Fogs are of very infrequent occurrence. Vegetation is usually checked by cold for not more than six weeks in the year, from the middle of December to the first of February. Nature, that does not allow the inhabitants of higher latitudes to become purely agricultural in their pursuits, forcing them, during the snows and ice of winter, to seek occupation in other arts and industries, here bares her bosom the year round to furnish food and work for man, and seed time and harvest occur in every month.

HEALTH.

By the U. S. Census for 1870, it appears that the minimum number of deaths in South Carolina occur during the month of October. After that month the number steadily increases during winter and spring, until the month of May, when the maximum number of deaths take place. From this date the mortality diminishes, more rapidly than it has increased, until the minimum in October is reached. By the same authority it is also shown that the groups of diseases most fatal during the month of May are such as hydrocephalous, apoplexy, accidents and injuries, none which can in any way be considered as due to climatic or local influences. From this it follows that death, and, consequently, ill health, in South Carolina cannot be attributed to the preponderance of any climatic or local causes, but supervene from such causes as may and must exist everywhere. The correctness of this negative conclusion may be safely accepted as descriptive of the sanitary condition of the State at large. There has been, however, and not without some foundation, an idea prevalent regarding the unhealthfulness of the coast region from malarial causes, which requires mention, especially as occurrences of recent date have greatly modified it. While the sand ridges between the rivers have always been esteemed healthy; while the well-kept vital statistics of the city of Charleston show that its health record will compare favorably

with that of other cities; and while numerous localities along the coast, as Mount Pleasant, Sullivan's island, and Beaufort, and many other places were much frequented as health resorts during the summer months, even by people from the up-country, it was confidently predicted, at the commencement of the late war, that no picket line along the coast between the armies could be maintained during the summer months. To the surprise of nearly every one, however, such did not prove to be the case. Climatic influences interfered in no way with the vigorous prosecution of hostilities. And it was demonstrated that large bodies of white men, under proper hygienic regulations, with the use of quinine as a preventive, might be safely counted on to endure unusual exposure and toil on these shores during the heat of summer. Since the war numerous white families, who formerly removed to the North or to the up-country during summer, have remained upon their farms the year round in the enjoyment of their usual health. By the census enumeration of June, 1880, the death rate among the rural population of the entire sea island district was fourteen per one thousand for the preceding year. Of the twenty-three white men who were enumerators of the tenth census on the sea islands, during the months of June and July, 1880, there was no day lost from work on account of sickness, though many of them were unaccustomed to the exposures which the work necessitated. Doubtless the prophylactic use of quinine has had something to do with the apparently increased healthfulness of this section, but it is also true that the danger to health was formerly greatly overestimated. With thorough drainage and careful attention to the rules of health, and especially to securing pure drinking water, there is no question that fevers might be expelled here as completely as they were from the fens of Cambridgeshire, in England, where they once prevailed, but have since yielded to the above methods. During the excessively hot and dry summer of 1728, "yellow fever" made its first appearance in Charleston. At greater or less intervals of time it has since visited the city during the summer months. After 1748 it did not make its appearance during a period of forty-four years. John Drayton writes, in 1801, "to the natives and long inhabitants of the city it has not yet been injurious." The germs of this disease have never been naturalized on this coast, and require a fresh importation every year. An epidemic occurring in Charleston during the war being clearly traced to a vessel from Havana, that had run the blockade, and, as Mr. Drayton describes it, this disease still remains restricted to certain localities, within a few miles of which perfect immunity from it may be enjoyed. This was clearly shown in the very fatal epidemic imported into Port Royal in 1877, causing a number of deaths there, while no case originated in the town of Beaufort, four miles distant, to