THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA.

CHAPTER VIII.

Of the interior of the soil of South Carolina little is known. The cultivation of its surface has so fully employed the energies, and so amply rewarded the labors of the inhabitants, that their inquiries seldom penetrated to any considerable depth beneath it. The superabundance of wood precluded all necessity for ransacking the bowels of the earth for coal. This for the most part lies lower than eighty feet, the greatest depth to which the soil of Carolina has ever yet been penetrated. In addition to the common agricultural operations on the face of the soil, it was occasionally penetrated for the interment of the dead, for cellars, and the foundations of houses, for obtaining water, for carrying off superfluous moisture by drains and ditches, and for the extension of inland navigation. From these sources we know that in Charlestown and near the sea-coast, water for the most part springs about six or eight feet from the surface-that if the digging is continued, it springs so abundantly that it is difficult to penetrate much lower, and if that difficulty is conquered the water is too brackish for domestic use. We also know that our descent from the surface of highland in the low country is most generally through a sandy soil; but when we penetrate through river swamps, we frequently meet with the trunks of large trees which appear to have been buried for ages; and that as far as these swamps have been penetrated, they consist of a rich blue clay in a black soft mould of inexhaustible fertility.

In digging for domestic purposes, near the ocean, we have seldom penetrated more than ten or twelve feet. To go much deeper was generally reputed worse than labor lost, for it always introduced us to bad water. Mr. Longstreet conceived the idea that by penetrating forty or fifty feet he would get below the bad water, and find a plentiful supply of a purer fluid than the surface afforded. To bring this theory to the test of experience, he began in 1803 to dig in a vacant lot in Archdale street. For the first eleven feet nothing uncommon presented. The next stratum, eighteen inches, was a black marsh mud and sand. This suddenly changed to a yellow sand and clay, and continued so for twenty inches, then suddenly resumed the black appearance and gradually changed

Mr. Longstreet next came to a bed of oyster, clam, and conch shells, many of which were entire; this stratum extended three feet. A yellow sand, intermixed with pow

dered shells was next presented, and continued for two feet. Between the twelfth and twentieth foot from the surface, muddy brackish water filled the well so fast as finally to overcome the most strenuous exertions to empty it. This chiefly ascended from the bottom; for effectual precautions were adopted to prevent any quantity of water from entering by the sides. In such a crisis, a mind of less energy than Mr. Longstreet's would have abandoned the project. Instead of this, he replaced a considerable portion of the earth in the well, and laying aside his spade, drove down a hollow tube of three inches diameter in the cavity of which a machine for boring was introduced. These were made to penetrate through the earth to the depth of fifty-four feet. The soil between the 20th and 47th foot was a continued dry, stiff, black clay. It was of such a consistence as to bear the chissel or plane, and to be capable of being cut into any shape. Knives are sharpened by drawing them over its surface when made smooth. Another stratum of shells presented itself for the next two feet. The black clay then became less rigid, and soon terminated in sand with little resistance to the operator. On descending two or three feet the water rushed up the tube forty-eight feet, so as to be only six feet from the surface, and with such rapidity as to yield fifteen gallons in a minute. The joy of the projector on this event may be more easily conceived than expressed. This water, after exposure to the air for a few minutes, resembled common well-water in taste and appearance, and was nearly of the same temperature. It readily lathered with soap, and gave satisfactory evidence of its being softer than common pump-water. It was free from lime, iron, copper, lead, vitriolic acid, or any acid whatever in a separate state; but contained a small proportion of common salt, rather less than is to be found in common wells.

From the result of this experiment, Mr. Longstreet was sanguine in the belief that if he had been supported so as to carry down a circular close wall of forty feet diameter to the depth of sixty or seventy feet, he would have got below all bad water, and have commanded an inexhaustible reservoir of what was good; perhaps derived by subterranean communications from the upper country but certainly from a source sufficiently high to cause its ascent to the vicinity of the surface; and that this water percolated through the bowels of the earth would be free from impurities on its surface, and in quantities sufficient for the supply of Charlestown. After one thousand dollars had been expended, the further prosecution of the subject was dropped; but under an engagement to be resumed when adequate funds were provided for the purpose. The only advantage that has resulted from the experiment is

a little more information of the interior of that portion of the State on which Charlestown is erected.*

Another experiment was made nearly at the same time, but for very different purposes; which demonstrates the possibility of enjoying health in Charlestown though in a subterraneous residence. On the night of the 9th of October, 1802, William Withers, a horse dealer from Kentucky, descended through a grate into one of the covered arched drains that pervade the streets of Charlestown and passed along the same till he was opposite to the South Carolina bank. He then began operations to make a subterraneous passage across from the drain to the vaults in which the cash of the bank was deposited. In prosecuting this business he passed ninety days and nights under ground and in a prone posture. For the first twentytwo days after his descent, the weather was so uncommonly warm as to be on an average nearly seventy-nine on Fahrenheit's thermometer. For the last sixty-eight days, the heat varied from seventy-four to thirty-three on the same instrument. In the first period yellow-fever, intermitting, and other fevers of warm seasons were common among the inhabitants. In the last period pleurisies, colds, and catarrhal complaints were in like manner frequent; yet all this time Withers enjoyed good health, with the exception of a few slight headaches and pains in his bones, which generally went off with perspiration in the course of his next repose. He had no blanket nor covering of any kind but his light ordinary apparel which he never put off. He was sometimes exposed to serious danger from the springing of water, and his bed was earth which was often damp. His food was mostly bread, butter, and cheese; and, with the exception of one bottle of wine, water was his only drink. Butter burning in a lamp afforded him light.

Three days frequently passed without discharging the contents of his bowels.

The enjoyment of so much health for so long a time under

*It is submitted to the water company of Charlestown, whether, in case of their meeting with difficulty in procuring a sufficiency of water, it would not be worth while to make a further experiment on Mr. Longstreet's plan. That there are subterraneous streams of water running to the ocean from distant high lands is probable, and in some cases certain. In Modena, in Italy, on digging into the earth, a column of water rushed above the surface. The same is said to have taken place lately in the city of Washington. As the land of this State ascends about three feet every mile, if by accident an experimenter on Mr. Longstreet's theory should strike a subterraneous stream, flowing from any distant western source, its ascent above the surface would be great, and might be made very useful. If it only came from the distance of twenty or thirty miles, it might have an elevation sufficient to discharge water in the highest stories of ordinary houses in Charlestown. The first experiment, though made under great disadvantages, produced an ascent of forty-eight feet. The project is founded on such plausible grounds as to merit further trials. Elkington's successful plan for draining lands is founded on principles that corroborate Longstreet's theory.

such circumstances, was, in addition to the excitement of his mind, probably owing to the absence of several of the causes of diseases. The heat of well water and of the earth a few feet below the surface is generally the same in all countries as the medium heat on an average of the different seasons in these countries respectively. This, in Charlestown, is sixtyfive, or at most sixty-six, on Fahrenheit's thermometer. Withers must have enjoyed a steady unvarying atmosphere of this temperature, while the inhabitants above ground were panting under a heat of eighty, or distressed with the cold of thirtythree on the same instrument, and subject to all the changes of an atmosphere vibrating from one extreme to the other.

The attempts at inland navigation in Carolina have extended our knowledge of the interior of its soil. The cuts which have been made across peninsulas, near the sea-coast, have brought to view such quantities of cypress timber as can only be accounted for on the idea that in former times an immense number of large trees of that species of wood grew there.*

In digging the Santee canal twenty-two miles across from Santee to Cooper river, the workmen met with different strata of clay, mud, sand, and soil. In one part there was a stratum of mud resembling soft-soap or jelly from about four to six inches deep, entirely free from any particle of grit. It lay on a stratum of lime stone. The lime stone met with in digging was generally covered first with sand, then clay, and lastly soil. In digging the summit canal which penetrated fifteen feet below the surface, there was a variety of strata, among which, was a very fine white clay; there was a stratum of red clay resembling red ochre. In this part of the canal the workmen got down to the natural bed of springs. In the course of this extended line of digging, were found trunks of trees seven feet below the surface, also many oyster shells of uncommon size, and bones of monstrous animals, unlike to any which are now known to exist. The latter were found eight or nine feet under the ground, and lying so near together as to make it probable that they originally belonged to one and the same

"That part of the inland passage between Charlestown and Savannah, beginning at Wappoo Cut, and ending at Bear's Bluff, where it falls into Edisto river, I have examined with some attention, and can affirm that a great part of this distance has been a cypress swamp. The first stump is at the landing of Abraham Waight, Esq., deceased, on St. John's Island, six miles east of new cut; and this cut is full of them, and on them several vessels have been damaged. I have examined them at low tide, and at Mr. Young's place, eight miles west of new cut. Mr. George Rivers owns three or four hundred acres of this high marsh land, now covered with small cedars. This I examined three years ago, and found many stumps and large logs of cypress; and below this place, on the Wadmalaw side, a few trees are still growing near the high lands. The spring tides cover these lands. I believe this is the case through the whole of the inland passage, wherever it passes through high marsh lands accessible only to the spring tides."Extract of a letter from Benjamin Reynolds, Esq., to the author, dated 1st December, 1808.

animal. Its size may be conjectured from its ribs, one of which, when dug up was nearly six feet long; and from one of its jaw teeth which was eight inches and a quarter long, three inches and a half wide, its root eleven inches and a half long. The depth of the tooth from its surface to its bottom was six inches and a half. The other parts of the skeleton were in a relative proportion.

The necessity for digging wells in the interior country is much less than on the sea-coast, for natural springs of water are more common as we advance towards the western mountains; where these fail, water cannot be generally procured without digging from fifteen to eighty feet. The intermediate soil is for the most part clay, but sometimes sand. Along the sea-coast, and for a hundred miles westward, South Carolina is generally low and flat, thence to its western extremity it is diversified, with hills rising higher and higher till they terminate in the Alleghany mountains, which are the partage ground of the eastern and western waters. In the vallies between these hills, a black and deep loam is found. This has been formed by abrasion from the hills, and from rotten trees and other vegetables which have been collecting for centuries.

Carolina, lying on the east side of the partage ground between the eastern and western waters, is considerably lower than the corresponding parts of the United States which are on its west side. Hence it follows that when the snows melt, or heavy rains fall on the mountains, much more of the water proceeding from these sources is determined to the Atlantic ocean than to the river Mississippi, in consequence of which, we are often too wet, while our western neighbors are too dry.

There are some circumstances which make it probable that the whole of the low country in Carolina was once covered by the ocean. In the deepest descent into the ground, neither stones or rocks obstruct our progress, but everywhere, sand or beds of shells. Intermixed with these at some considerable depth from the surface, petrified fish are sometimes dug up. Oyster shells are found in great quantities at such a distance from the present limits of the sea-shore, that it is highly improbable they were ever carried there from the places where they are now naturally produced. A remarkable instance occurs in a range of oyster shells extending from Nelson's Ferry, on the Santee river, sixty miles from the ocean in a south-west direction, passing through the intermediate country till it crosses the river Savannah in Burke county, and continuing on to the Oconee river, in Georgia. The shells in this range are uncommonly large, and are of a different kind from