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 influence inert and slow to enter upon great commercial enterprises, it is remarkable that Charleston merchants and planters planned and successfully constructed the earliest great railroad line in America. Mr. Courtenay says:

"While the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad was being constructed in 1829, under Stephenson's direction, and Baltimore was reaching out to the Ohio River, Charleston was projecting a railroad to the head of navigation on the Savannah River, which when completed was the longest railroad in the World."

In the royal grants of land in Carolina the Crown reserved an interest in all precious and base metals, and some of the grants reserved for the King a share of the diamonds and precious stones which avarice rather than common sense suggested might underlie tide-*water South Carolina. Geologists and lawyers laughed at the idea of precious stones in marshes and sand dunes, though there had been