Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/102

 the most favorable views as to all things touching Virginia, and they have founded their adverse opinion on the geological character of the country that was the scene of the earliest settlement. It is well known that Tidewater Virginia, with the exception of the strip of land extending along the edge of the waters of the ocean and Bay, which is of Quaternary origin, belongs to the Tertiary period, and is, therefore, composed of sands and clays only comparatively recently deposited by the retiring sea. It is a vast body of alluvial sediment, the beds of minerals still uncompressed into rock, and the remains of oysters, mussels, and other marine animals lying here and there in separate masses, or confused with the other materials of the soil. The entire division of country is in the form of a succession of terraces after the line of shore is left behind. The first terrace is composed of light-colored sands and clays of a fine texture underlaid by marl; this is the character of the Eastern Shore and the Norfolk Peninsula, now so justly celebrated for their market gardens, both soil and climate being adapted to the production of vegetables of the most excellent quality, in incalculable abundance. The second terrace is superimposed upon the plane of the first, and is principally composed of beds of coarse gravel and sand, situated not far from the surface, and with horizontal beds of yellow and blue marl, shells and conglomerate fragments. The third terrace consists of a narrow area of country, which has the same constituents as the first and second terraces. The soil of the greater part of Tidewater Virginia to-day has the lightness and thinness that have always been found to be characteristic of the geological formation to which it belongs, and the same lightness and thinness have distinguished it from the hour which first saw it rise