ten millions of tons. And in effect this company (which is the only thoroughly equipped river mining company now at work, 1881) consider, in spite of their large plant, consisting of extensive drying sheds and wharves, three heavy dredges, four large steam tugs, sixty large flats and a numerous fleet of smaller ones, besides washers, workshops, &c., by which they daily raise and prepare for market hundreds of tons of rock, that their supply of material is practically unlimited. From the works of this company fleets of dredging boats belonging to other parties may be seen at work, and in the neighborhood there are several well known localities where rock as rich, as abundant, and, with suitable machinery as accessible, is found, but which remain unworked. It seems remarkable that while coal mining at great depths is found profitable, when the product sells at $3.00 per ton, that capital has not more eagerly sought employment in these superficial deposits, worth never less than $5.00, and now $9.00 per ton.

There are ten (1881) companies engaged in land mining. The land either belongs to them or is leased by them for a term of years. Parallel ditches, two yards wide, are sunk through the soft soil to a depth of 4 feet to 7 feet, to the stratum of sand or mud in which the loose layer of phosphate nodules is found. The rock is shoveled out, thrown into heaps and transported by rail to the washers situated on the wharves, whence it. is shipped. A common laborer will raise a ton a day, for which he is paid $1.75. The product of the land rock is about 100,000 tons a year, and the most of it is ground and manufactured into acid phosphates and other fertilizers, by the eight manufacturing companies within the State. The river miners work under charters from the State, which grant them a general right to work a specified territory with any other comers, or under an exclusive right to such territory. In either case they pay a royalty to the State of $1.00 for every ton of rock raised. The river works yield about 100,000 tons of rock per annum; being harder, and therefore more difficult to grind, it has been mostly shipped to foreign or northern ports to be manufactured. Labor receives good wages at this work. Divers raising the rock from a depth of 10 feet or 12 feet, paid by the amount raised, working 14 hours on the ebb and 14 on the flood tide, earn as much as $18 a week. This work is neither dangerous or unhealthy, and those engaged in it seem to enjoy their aquatic exercise. It is thought that large quantities of rock underlie the salt marshes between the high and low water mark, which would be the property of the State. So far very little work, and no extensive exploration, has been made in this direction. In fact, vast quantities of the best rock yet unworked cover the bottom of many of these rivers.

The total amount of phosphate rock mined from the 1st of June, 1874,

to the 31st of January, 1882, is estimated at 1,505,550 tons; of this about 44 per cent. was shipped to foreign ports. The royalty of $1.00 per ton paid to the State for rock raised from navigable waters amounted, in 1881, to $124,541; a single company, the Coosaw, paying $99,135. In this year 71,316 tons of river rock were shipped to foreign, and 52,225 tons to domestic ports. The State can safely count on a much larger revenue from this source for years to come, for at this rate of production the Coosaw company itself would not exhaust the rock in sight, without further exploration in its own territory, in 120 years, and the demands of agriculturists for this valuable material, while they can scarcely be less than at present, are likely to increase very much.

SOIL.

The 7,000 square miles of uplands in the Lower Pine Belt comprises three leading varieties of soil: 1st. A sandy loam, with a white sandy subsoil. 2d. A sandy loam, with a yellow subsoil. 3d. A sandy loam, with a clay subsoil; the clay is generally yellow, but sometimes it is red. The surface soil is lighter or darker, in proportion to the varying quantities of vegetable matter it contains, and where the clay subsoil occurs, it assumes, on cultivation, a mulatto color. These soils bear a strong resemblance to the sea island soil, having this advantage, however, over them that are very generally underlaid by easily accessible beds of marl, richer in lime than those of sea islands. In drainage, however, they compare unfavorably with the sea islands. For the scouring effect of the rise and fall of the tide, which keeps the water ways around the islands open, is not only not experienced in this belt, but, on the contrary, the luxuriant water growth that flourishes here has filled up the channels, converting them into swamps, through which scarcely any current passes. This, in connection with the level character of the country, renders the body of these lands wet. But for this, the good mechanical constitution of the soil, being light and easily tilled, and at the same time (except in the case of white sandy subsoil) sufficiently compact to be retentive of manures and moisture, together with the abundance of marl and of peat and muck at hand as amendments to the virgin soil, would have made them most desirable lands for tillage. As it is, not more than one acre in 22 is under cultivation, and the prices of lands are from $5.00 down to 50 cents.

The following analyses by C. U. Shepard, Sr., from Toumey's report, give an idea of the constitution of some of the poorer soils of this region, classed as pine barren. 1. Loose sandy soil. 2. Dark gray soil. 3. Very light sandy soil. 4. Loose yellow sandy soil:

Dr. J. L. Smith furnishes, in the report cited, the following analyses of cotton lands in this section. In 1,000 parts of surface soil:

0.71 0.50 0.50 1.20 5.03 6.16 4.56 4.99

100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00

Portions of these soils, soluble in warm muriatic acid, were found to contain phosphoric acid.

The 4,500 square miles of overflowed lands in the savanna region. present quite a variety of swamp lands. The most elevated of these are cypress ponds-shallow flats, with an impervious clay bottom, thickly grown with small cypress. Some of them contain a thick deposit of vegetable matter, and, when drained, have proved very productive. Next in order come the almost impenetrable bays, thickly set with a growth of bay, gum and tulip trees, and a dense undergrowth of vines and bushes. The soil is peat or muck, resting on blue mud, and underlaid by marl and sand. Then come the open savannas and the river bottoms, a rich, tough, loamy soil, having at times a depth of sixty feet, derived from the denudation of the upper country, whose "richest possessions are found in well-sifted purity in these vast swamps." These are the rice lands of Carolina. Taken all in all, whether we consider the physical character of the soil, the amount of organic matter it contains, the variety of its mineral constituents, or the subtropical climate of the locality, with the facilities for irrigation, either for culture or to renew the surface fertility, they are, perhaps, excelled in productiveness by no lands in the

world.

GROWTH.

The characteristic growth of the uplands is the long-leaved pine, extending in open pine woods over the wide plain, with scarcely any undergrowth except here and there the scrub oak and grasses of the

genus aristada and spordolus, the wire and drop seed grass. The palmetto reaches only a few miles inland from salt water, but the live oak is found as much as sixty miles from the shore line. The magnolia, tulip tree, sweet and black gum, the white and red bays, the white oak, the black walnut, the elm, hickory and cypress are among the largest and most conspicuous trees of the swamps; the undergrowth, commencing with a fringe of gall berry (prinos glaber) on the margin of the swamps, and consisting of a great variety of grape, briar and other vines, myrtles, &c., is very dense.

CLIMATE.

In the absence of weather records, it is difficult to express the difference between the climate of lower pine belt and that of sea coast, already described, more definitely than to say that it is such difference as is to be found between the conditions favorable for the growth of the cabbage palmetto, which barely touches the southern border of the belt, and of the live oak, that just extends to its northern or inland margin. A low, flat country, intersected by numerous swamps, might naturally be thought very sickly. This region, however, has one advantage. Almost everywhere there are found small tracts, islands, as it were, of dry, sandy soil, heavily timbered with the long leaf pine, which is a barrier to the invasion of malaria. These retreats furnish places of residence as healthy as are to be found anywhere; such a place is the village of Summerville, on the S. C. R. R., a health resort that divides with Sullivan's island the patronage of the citizens of Charleston during the warm weather. McPhersonville, in Hampton, and Pineville, in Georgetown, are villages of the same character, and there is scarcely a neighborhood that has not some such healthy spot as a place of residence during summer. The dread of malaria is much less than it was when the opinion that the colored race was exempt from such influences was adduced as an argument to show the providential nature of their location here to develop these fertile lands. The reverses of fortune, sustained as a result of the war, have forced many white families to reside the summer long where it was once thought fatal to do so, and the experiment has been successful, thus exploding the idea that white people could not enjoy health here during the summer months. Replies from twenty-three townships state without exception, that the inhabitants enjoy good health, and that a considerable portion of the field work is performed by whites—a great change since the war. The census returns give fifteen deaths per one thousand population in the portions of Charleston and Colleton counties lying in this region, for the year 1880.

STATISTICS.

The lower pine belt contains 10,226 square miles, of which 4,500 are alluvial or swamp lands, either covered with water or subject to overflow. The tilled land is 358,533 acres, by the census returns of 1880, which is 30 per cent., or 171,306 acres, less than the number given by the census of 1870. There are 1.6 farms and 35 acres of tilled land per square mile, or 20 acres of tilled and 400 acres of untilled land to the farm. Something less than 1 per cent. of the total area, or 6.4 acres per square mile, is planted in cotton; there is in grain of all kinds 15.8 acres, and in other crops and fallow, 13 acres per square mile, with 1.8 head of work stock and 23 head of all live stock. These figures represent the minimum (the area in other crops and fallow alone excepted) to be found anywhere in the State. Notwithstanding the small proportion of stock to the area, the people here are the staunchest adherents of the fence law, and claim entire freedom of range for their cattle. This, too, while the entire number of stock of all sorts is only 1.15 per capita of the population, being less than in any part of this State, except upon the coast.

The population numbers 203,748 (including 49,999 in the city of Charleston), or 18.9 per square mile, which is less than in any part of the State, the sand hills excepted, where the number is 11.7. The ratio of colored to white is greater than elsewhere except upon the coast, and is sixty-nine per cent., the same that it was given at in 1870. The tilled land is 1.7 acres per capita; .2 acres more than on the coast. This is not quite one-half the average for the whole State, and is owing, 1st, to the large area of unreclaimed swamps; 2nd, to the number of the population engaged in the turpentine and lumber business. The large bodies of land held solely for the forest products they yield, as turpentine, lumber, shingles, staves, &c., accounts for the fact that while the number of farms to the square mile is few, the number in proportion to the population is as great, even as among the small farms on the coast, being one to every twelve and a half of the population. Nevertheless the amount of land tilled per capita has decreased thirty-eight per cent. since 1870. Showing that the forest industries are gaining on agriculture.

In point of production we have 2.7 bales of cotton per square mile against 1.9 in 1870, an increase of forty-one per cent., but still less than half the minimum produced elsewhere, except on the coast. Per capita the yield is only sixty-eight pounds of lint, but per acre planted in cotton it is 219 pounds, showing that in this little cultivated region the yield of the land planted is not only above the average of the State, but is absolutely the maximum any where reached. So, too, of the grain crop, while