CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

LOCATION.

The State of South Carolina lies between North latitude 32° 4' 30" and 35° 12′ and longitude West from Washington 1° 30′ and 6° 54'.

AREA.

William Gerald De Brahm gave to the public, in 1757, the first Map of South Carolina, estimating the area of the State at 33,760 square miles. James Cook, in 1771, and Henry Mouzon, in 1775, published in London excellent maps of the State, from which Drayton and Ramsay make the area 24,080 square miles. Between 1816 and 1820 the State expended $52,760 on a map of the State, under the direction of John Wilson; this map was published in 1822. The State spent $12,000 more for this purpose in 1825, and obtained Robert Mills' large Atlas of South Carolina, probably the most accurate map of the State even to this day. Mills estimates the area of the State at 30,213 square miles, The United States Census of 1870 places it at 34,000 square miles, while the census of 1880 makes it 30,170. Thus, although geography may be held as one of the exact sciences, it seems that these geographers, with no material changes in the boundaries, vary in their estimates from twenty-six to thirtyseven per cent.

BOUNDARIES.

The State approaches in shape the form of an isosceles-triangle. The equal sides being on the North, the boundary line of North Carolina, and on the South and West, the Savannah river separating it from Georgia. The apex of the triangle rests upon the summits of the Blue Ridge mountains. The base sweeping with a gentle s shaped curve from the southwest to the northeast, forms part of the Atlantic shore line of North America. This line is parallel, or nearly so, with about one-half the

coast lines of the continents of the earth, as witness the northwest coast lines of America, Europe and Africa, and the southeast coast lines of South America, Africa and Asia.

GENERAL FEATURES.

Parallel also with this coast line trend the divisions between the various geological formations of the State. First, extending not more than ten miles inland, we have the strata of the post pleiocene resting on the formations of the eocene. These, with here and there a patch of the meiocene and cretaceous formations, stretch back into the interior about one hundred miles, until they reach the crystalline rocks, whose well marked line has, during the entire past history of the State, divided it socially, politically and industrially, as well as physically, into what has always been known as the up-country and the low-country of Carolina. This division of the State into up-country and low-country by the line bounding the southern margin of the crystalline rocks, and trending northeast and southwest across its central portion, is strongly marked in everything, in the hills and highlands of the up-country, with their heavy red clay soils, and in the gentle slopes or wide flats of lighter colored sandy loam of the lowcountry, in the rapid, turbid water courses of the one, and the slow, clear currents of the other; in the vegetable growth, the chestnut, the deciduous oaks and the short leaf pine, occupying the up-country, and the long leaf pine, the magnolia and the evergreen oaks, with the long gray moss, marking the low-country'; and lastly, in the manners, character, ancestry, and even in the very tones of voice of the inhabitants. Passing beyond the lower margin of the crystalline rocks and proceeding towards the mountains, we find in all the various strata—in the order of their superposition-one above the other, the limestones, the itacolumite, the clay tale and mica slates, the gneiss and the granite-that the same parallelism is maintained throughout, the prevailing strike in all being N. 20° to 30° E. If we regard the movements of the atmosphere, we find here also that the predominating currents of the air move in a northeasterly and southwesterly direction.

RIVERS.

Perpendicular to this direction-that is to say, in a southeasterly course the four great rivers, with their numerous tributaries that drain and irrigate South Carolina, make their way from the mountains to the sea. Before leaving the crystalline rocks-the point that marks their lower falls and the head of steam navigation-the rivers have received the rapid currents of nearly all their affluents. Thereafter their stately

flow proceeds more slowly, passing the great inland swamps of the low country, as if the waters still remembered when they found issuances through these ancient deltas. In the great freshet of 1796, the waters of the Santee river broke through at Hell-Hole swamp, and made their way to the sea through Cooper river. During the same freshet, the Savannah river made its way through the swamps of Hampton county, and emptied its waters through Broad river into the sea at Port Royal. As each river leaves the region of rocks to enter the borders of the lowcountry, it makes a sudden and well-marked detour eastward, except the Savannah, which seems to have had its bed shifted westward at this line of demarcation. Thus, had the grooves cut through the ancient strata of the crystalline rocks by these streams been prolonged among the sands and clays of the low-country, their estuaries would have been quite different from what they are at present. Had the line of the Savannah, as it channeled its way ages ago through the mica, slate and gneiss rock of Oconee, Anderson and Abbeville counties, not been thrown westward by the granites of Horse creek and the high sand and clay hills of Aiken county, it would have continued its course to Broad river, at present that magnificent arm of the sea forming the head of Port Royal harbor. Here it would have been joined, too, by the waters of the North and South Edisto, had they not been deflected eastward by the granite rocks and sand hills of Aiken and Orangeburg counties. Here, also, the waters of the Santee, containing those of the Wateree and Congaree, would have joined them, had they followed the line of the ancient channel of the Catawba, their most easterly affluent, as it grooved its way through tale slates and granites of Lancaster, York and Chester counties. It would seem more appropriate that some great Father of Waters, having these proportions, should have built up such a grand delta as the islands, rivers, sounds and bays of Beaufort present, rather than it were the sole and undisputed estuary of such insignificant claimants as the rivers Tillifinny, Pocotaligo and Coosawhatchie, preserving in their long names alone the memory of the noble river that once must have found its way to the ocean here. Noting the remarkable parallelism in this eastward deflection of nearly all the water courses of Carolina, it would seem that one and the same cause must have produced these changes. Such a cause would have been an upheaving force-or forces, rather-operating from the southwest to the northeast, in the line of the eruptive rocks that cross the State from Edgefield to York counties. We may readily imagine how these successive elevations running from the southwest, after turning the Savannah into its present delta, pushed the other streams eastward, dropping the different affluents as it passed along, leaving the Combahee

and Edisto at St. Helena sound, as the Tillifinny, Pocotaligo and Coosawhatchie were left at Port Royal to mark the delta there, and losing the Ashley and Cooper rivers at Charleston harbor, while the Santee, moved further westward, still marks out its channel to the sea near Winyaw bay.

Again, on the near approach of the rivers to the sea, some of them show a deflection westward. But the previously noticed parallelism does not obtain in this case. In some, as in the Pee Dee, the westward bend is well marked. In others, as in the Edisto, the river is merely turned from an eastward to a south course, while the Santee seems scarcely at all diverted from its eastwardly course. It would not seem, therefore, that this change had resulted from the action of any single cause, but, rather, that it was the resultant of opposing forces, operating with varying intensities. Such forces would be found in the southeasterly currents of the streams themselves, opposed by that southwesterly ocean current-a recurrent of the Gulf Stream-that sweeps along the Carolina coast. Where the river currents were strong, and loaded with a wealth of detritus from the drainage of an extensive back country, it would hold its own against the ocean current, dam it out and establish for itself the direction of its outlet. Hence the Santee piles up its banks and carries the shore line out beyond Cape St. Romain, and all the coast southwest of it, the site of ancient and actual deltas, is lined with islands. Short or sluggish streams, however, supported by the detritus of no great water-shed-as the Waccamaw river-would yield readily to the action of the ocean currents, conform to their direction, establish no nests of islands at their deltas, but leave the sea to make a smooth, bare sand beach. Such we find the curving shore from Georgetown entrance to the North Carolina line to be, where, for twenty miles on a stretch, a carriage may roll along the beach at low water, leaving in the hard sands not the slightest impress of its wheels.

Crossing the crystalline rocks nearly at right angles, the waters, in their course through the up-country, encounter a series of natural dams, which, while it renders them easily available as water-powers, seriously obstructs navigation. The passage of boats, say of two hundred tons burthen, as a rule, reaches inland but very little farther than the remarkable belt of high and healthy sand hills which lie along the lower borders of these rocks.

The tortuous course into which the streams have been forced by the causes already stated, after entering the low country, while it has increased the navigable waters of the State, giving, "apart from creeks and inlets of the sea, an inland navigation of twenty-four hundred miles," has seriously impeded the drainage of the low country, creating there

some fifty-five hundred square miles of swamp lands, which, though naturally, when reclaimed, of almost inexhaustible fertility, remain to this day for the most part waste, the prolific source of the miasms so deleterious to the health of this region. Numerous suggestions to remedy this evil have been made, but as yet nothing has been attempted on a scale commensurate with the importance of the undertaking. The Legislature even refused, in 1846, to grant a charter to a company proposing to prolong the channel of the Edisto in a direct line through Wassamassaw swamp to the Ashley river; and a suggestion of a similar character, for straightening the Santee through to the Cooper river, and draining, thereby, Biggin, Fair Forest, Walleye, and the numerous adjacent swamps, made by Governor Seabrook, in 1848, met with no response. Such works would have reclaimed for the plow large bodies of soil, consisting of fine mud and decomposing vegetable matter, resting, at a depth of five to ten feet, on marl or gravel; restored the adjoining uplands to remunerative culture; and would have established on a secure foundation the healthfulness of the entire region.

PHYSICAL AND AGRICULTURAL REGIONS.

In addition to the two grand divisions of South Carolina already dwelt upon into the "up-country" and "low-country," it will facilitate the consideration of the agricultural characteristics of the State to treat of them under certain minor natural and parallel sub-divisions, which are quite well marked. These are as follows:

I. The Coast Region. It coincides very nearly with the post pleiocene formation, rarely extending inland more than ten miles from the shore line. It consists

1st. Of the Sea Islands lying south of Santee river, and containing about eight hundred square miles.

2d. The salt marshes, uncovered at low tide, bordering and intercalating with the Sea Islands, capable of being reclaimed, and embracing six hundred square miles.

3d. The continuous shore line north of Santee river and Georgetown entrance, three hundred square miles in extent.

II. The Lower Pine Belt or Savannah Region, lying inland and parallel with the Coast Region. It has a width of about fifty miles, attains a maximum elevation above the sea of one hundred and thirty feet. It may be divided,

1st. Into the region below the influence of the tides, the rice fields of South Carolina.