Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/North Carolina

NORTH CAROLINA, one of the original thirteen States that formed the American Union, is situated on the Atlantic seaboard between 33° 50' and 36° 33' N. lat. and between 75° 27' and 84° 20' W. long. It stretches 500 miles east and west across the entire breadth of the Atlantic slope of the Appalachians in a long narrow rudely triangular belt, its western extremity, less than 20 miles wide, resting on the highest plateau and summits of that continental system of mountains, while its eastern end spreads out to a breadth of 200 miles in a low, level, and gently undulating plain on the Atlantic coast, with a curving shore-line of more

than 300 miles. Its area is 52,286 square miles, of which 3620 are covered by water.

Physical Features.&mdash;The western section is a rugged mountainous plateau; it forms a narrow, irregular, much indented trough, lying between the bifurcating chains of the western and dominant arm of the southern prolongation of the Appalachians,—the Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge,—the former being the western boundary of the State. The length of this plateau from north-east to south west is more than 200 miles, its breadth 15 to 50 miles, and its area nearly 6000 square miles. The Smoky chain has a general elevation of from 5000 to 6000 feet, rising in many summits to 6500 feet and upwards, but is broken down by half a dozen deep water-gaps or cañons to the level of 2000 and even 1200 feet. The Blue Ridge, which constitutes the eastern boundary of the plateau, is a very sinuous and angular and straggling mountain chain, with a general elevation of from 3000 to 4000 feet and upwards, a few of its higher summits, about midway in the State, reaching nearly 6000 feet.

These two bounding chains are connected by many north and south cross-chains, of equal elevation with themselves, or greater, and separated by deep valleys. On one of these cross-chains, called the Black Mountains, is Mitchell's Peak, the highest point east of the Mississippi, its altitude being 6688 feet (400 feet above Mount Washington in New Hampshire). The cross-valleys or river-basins have an altitude of from 2000 to 3000 feet, with smaller benches and marginal plateaus of from 3500 to 4000 feet. Seen from the east or Atlantic side, the Blue Ridge appears as a steep, ragged, and broken escarpment, springing suddenly 2000 to 3000 feet above the Piedmont plateau at its base. This plateau has along its western margin an altitude of 1200 to 1500 feet above sea-level, and is mountainous, with high and precipitous spurs projected eastward and southward from the Blue Ridge. A few of these extend in irregular straggling ranges all across the breadth of the Piedmont section, which is 60 to 75 miles wide, and carries an elevation of 1000 feet to its eastern margin.

This middle region of the State is a country of hills and valleys and rolling uplands, its prominent topographical features being a succession of broad-backed swells with eastward or south-eastward trends, constituting the watersheds between a number of large rivers, which take their rise in the Piedmont or on the flanks of the Blue Ridge, and reach the Atlantic through a system of wide valleys, 300 to 500 feet below the intervening divides. The area of this region is about 20,000 square miles; its altitude, descending gradually from 1000 to about 200 feet, averages about 650 feet. Eastward, to the sea, lies a great champaign, 100 to 120 miles wide, and 20,000 square miles in area. The surface is generally quite level, but in places undulating and hilly towards the western border, especially near the larger rivers. Towards the coast it is diversified by numerous and extensive sounds, bays, rivers, lakes, marshes, swamps, and islands, the whole surface for 50 miles inland from Hatteras and the eastern shore being less than 20 feet above sea -level. The sea is walled off from this low-lying territory by a long linear chain of sand-islands or dunes, ranging from 75 to 100 feet and upwards in height, and separated in half a score places by inlets which connect the sounds with the ocean.

Rivers and Drainage.&mdash;The features above described give the main outlines of the drainage system, the Blue Ridge being obviously the chief factor. The streams which rise east of that chain empty into the Atlantic, either directly through the territory of this State or by crossing also that of South Carolina; those which rise west of it seek the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico, partly by way of the Tennessee, many of whose chief affluents have cut their

way in a north-westerly course across the mountain plateau and through the Smoky range, and partly by way of the Ohio, leaving the plateau in a north-easterly direction and reaching that river by the Kanawha through Virginia. Several of the most considerable rivers take their rise in the midland region. The numerous rivers of the eastern section, as they approach the sounds and the sea, broaden into bays of 2, 3, and 5 miles width, through which the movement of the tide is felt to a distance of 50 and 60 miles inland, and many of them are navigable for more than a hundred miles to the lower falls near the western border of the alluvial region.

Climate.&mdash;In climate North Carolina resembles France and Italy. The position of the eastern end on the Atlantic and its projection southward beyond the parallel of 34°, together with the near approach of the Gulf Stream, give this part of the State a sub-tropical climate, its isotherm (66°) being that of the southern half of the Gulf States and of Nicolosi in Sicily, while the great elevation and inland recession of the western section bring its climate to that of the cold temperate zone, the isotherm for the higher plateaus (51°) being that of New England and Upper Canada. The average annual mean temperature of the State is 59°; for the eastern region it is 61°, for the middle 58°, and for the mountainous region 52°. The summer temperature is, for the State 77°, and for the several regions respectively 79°, 77°, 70°; and the winter temperature, 43° for the State, and for the regions named 46°, 44°, 38°. During a recent winter of unusual severity the thermometer several times indicated 30° and 40° below zero in Michigan and New England, while in North Carolina 10° above zero was reached but once. The average of the minimum temperature for the State is 15°, for the middle region 13°, and for the west 8°; a record of 10° is rarely made east of the Blue Ridge, or of west of it. The mean annual rainfall is nearly double that of England and France, the average for the State being 52 inches, and for the east, middle, and west respectively 60, 45, 58 inches. This precipitation is distributed nearly uniformly through the different seasons, with a slight preponderance in the amount of summer rain and a correspondingly less quantity in the autumn. Notwithstanding this large amount of rainfall, the tables of humidity show that the climate is as dry as that of France; and the cultivation of the vine, cotton, silk, &amp;c., furnishes the strongest practical proof of the fact. The prevalent winds are westerly, south-west winds being more common in the east, north-west winds in the middle, and west winds in the mountain region. The rain-bearing winds are mostly from the west and south-west, but the winter rains often come from the north-east. Situated westward of the track of the Atlantic cyclones, and sheltered by high mountains and by distance from the western tornado, the State enjoys almost complete immunity from these destructive visitations. The climate is favourable to human health, except in limited malarial tracts in the lowlands on some of the rivers. The death-rate for this State is less than the average for the United States, and one of the two areas where consumption is unknown is found here.



Geological Map of North Carolina.

Geology.&mdash;The geological structure of the State is very simple; the formations are arranged quite regularly in zones parallel to the Appalachian axis and the Atlantic coast, and belong almost entirely to two horizons, the Archæan (or Azoic) and the Tertiary. The rocks of the several subdivisions of the former, the Laurentian, Montalban, Huronian, &amp;c., occupy the western and middle regions and succeed each other in broad terranes, consisting of granites, gneisses, and schists, separated by narrow belts of quartzites, limestones, sandstones, and slates. The dip of these rocks is almost uniformly eastward and generally at a

high angle. Across the middle of the State lies an extensive zone, 20 to 40 miles wide, of the Archaean slates, with a predominance of chlorite and felsite slates, schists, clay slates, and shales, with steep westerly dips. This is succeeded in the region of Raleigh by another terrane of gneisses and schists about 20 miles wide, inclined eastward at high angles and disappearing southward and eastward under the Tertiary formation, and giving place in turn, farther eastward, to an equal breadth of slates and felsites, (with occasional bosses of granite), which are only seen where they have been uncovered in the beds and bluffs of the larger rivers. The whole eastern region is mantled over with a thin covering of Tertiary rocks. These consist of sands, gravels, and clays, and of shingle beds and earths rudely stratified, towards the western border. The thickness of this formation ranges from a few feet to 25 and 50 feet, occasionally reaching 100 and 200 feet. Throughout the eastern and larger part of the division, in the ravines and in the beds and banks of the streams, are numerous outcrops of Middle Tertiary marls, Lower Tertiary shell-limestones, and coarse chalk beds. And in the southern half of this section, in the river beds and near the water-line of their banks, the Cretaceous formation appears in beds of half-compacted greensand, occasionally filled with shells. Overlying the Tertiary are sporadic patches of Quaternary clays, gravels, and shingle beds, the latter chiefly near the great channel ways of the rivers, where they sometimes reach a thickness of 30 and 50 feet. The Mesozoic formation is represented by two long narrow trough-like terranes of Triassic sandstones, conglomerates, clay slates, and shales, with bituminous coal. One of these, 5 to 6 miles wide with a south-easterly dip of 10° to 20°, enters the State from South Carolina a few miles west of the Pedee river and, passing within 10 miles (west) of Raleigh, disappears within 15 miles of the Virginia line; the other, about 40 miles long and 2 to 4 miles wide, lies along the valley of the Dan river, nearly east and west in direction and near the Virginia line. These beds have a north-westerly dip of 30° to 70°. The rocks of these two belts have a thickness of several thousand feet and are evidently the remnant fringes of a broad, flat anticlinal which has suffered extensive erosion. These two outcrops converge in the direction of the Richmond coal-beds, and were no doubt once continuous with them and with the Mesozoic of New Jersey and Connecticut. The former of these belts carries a 6-foot seam of bituminous, the other a 3-foot seam of semi-bituminous coal. Both are of good quality, but have been little worked. The Palæozoic rocks are entirely wanting, and the Primordial cross the State line from Tennessee only in a few places along the Smoky Mountains.

Minerals.&mdash;In consequence of the wide distribution of the older rocks there is a notable abundance and variety of minerals. More than 180 species have been discovered, some of great rarity; and one of them has recently yielded to science two new metallic chemical elements. Nearly a score different species of gems have been found, including the diamond, ruby, sapphire, emerald, beryl, lazulite, amethyst, garnet, agate, and zircon. There occur also many minerals having special applications in the

arts, viz., mica, corundum, asbestos, baryte, chromic iron, garnet, zircon, kaolin, black oxide of manganese, talc, pyrophyllite, &amp;c. Mica is found in large veins or dykes in all the terranes of Montalban gneisses, but the most extensive and valuable mines are found in the mountain region, where workable veins are numerous and extensive and the sheets of mica of unusual size and excellence. Corundum is about as widely distributed as mica, and occurs in the same series of rocks, as well as in some of the slate belts. The chief sources of supply of both corundum and mica for the arts, in the United States and in Europe, are the deposits of the mountains of this State. In this region are also numerous beds of white and variously-coloured marbles. Building stones of every variety are found in nearly all the sections, and whetstone, millstone, and grindstone grits, as well as potter's clay and fire-clay; and in the seaboard section are immense beds of peat. Iron, copper, and gold ores are coextensive with the outcrops of the metamorphic rocks. Several parallel ranges of magnetic and hæmatite iron-ore beds cross the State in a north-east direction, in both the middle and the mountain regions. These ores are of a high grade and are in great demand at the Bessemer furnaces in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. Beds of limonite are numerous and extensive in all parts of the State. Blackband ore is associated with the coal, and spathic ore occurs as the gangue of several copper and gold mines in the middle region. Iron for domestic consumption has been manufactured for a hundred years in the middle region and half as long in the other sections. Gold occurs in both placers and veins from Halifax county on the upper margin of the eastern champaign, within 110 miles of the sea-coast, through all the intermediate sections to Cherokee county in the extreme south-west. The more extensive and productive deposits are found in the midland region in the southern half of the great slate belt, and in the central part of the Piedmont region among the foot hills and spurs of the mountains. These placers consist of coarse shingle in the beds of the streams and the bordering level bottoms; climbing the slopes and benches of the hills adjacent, they pass insensibly from half-stratified shingle, gravel, and sand beds into unstratified earths with mingled fragments of stone. These deposits cover several hundred square miles of territory, and are of Quaternary or more recent age. Compared with those of California, they are of very slight thickness, generally not above 5 or 10 to 20 feet, and only occasionally reaching 40 and 50 feet. The most important and valuable vein mines are also found in the midland region. One of these, the Gold Hill mine near Salisbury, has been wrought to a depth of 750 feet, and its total produce exceeds two million dollars of bullion. In the same section are several noted silver mines,—Silver Hill, Silver Valley, and others. Many of the gold veins of the midland region carry also copper ores, and there are numerous copper veins in various parts of the middle and western regions. The more common ore is chalcopyrite, but there are also important lodes of grey copper.