Southern Medical and Surgical Journal - Georgia Regents University

;108 Report upon the Topography and [February,Between the line of bluffs and the line of sand-hills the greatestpart of the rice which is grown in Georgia is produced, andalso much of the long-stapled cotton.The line of sand-hills is an abrupt rise from a comparativelylevel plain, of about sixty feet, which height is very graduallyincreased as the distance from the beginning line is increased,with a succession of undulations of no great altitude, exceptnear the river swamps. These swamps are like wide, shallowvalleys cutting through the undulations, in which the streamsmeander from one side to the other, without any apparent causefor keeping any particular course.These valleys are filled to their present surface-level with themost recent alluvium, the vegetable mould now forming on thespot, sometimes covered with water and a growth of cypress, andin other places dry, with a heavy growth of such trees and bushesas delight in a damp, rich soil.Into these swamps and lowlands the above-mentioned undulationsproject more or less, producing an irregular line of riverhills, having the valleys between them gradually rising from thelevel of the river swamps to that of the innumerable ponds thatare scattered all over the face of this part of the country. Thesevalleys, which carry off the surface water after rains, windabout among hills of but little height above them, until approachingthe river swamps, where they seem to have beenwashed deeper, but are accompanied in their whole course bythat kind of water-drain called by the inhabitants " bay-galls,"which are from thirty to sixty yards or more in width ; theseare like the river swamps, on a smaller scale, and often resemblevast hedges dividing fields of open pine-barren, or densethickets of low whortleberry-bushes, or species of Andromedacalled by the people " tie-tie."When these bay-galls, in their course to the river, meet together,they make considerable streams, which seldom run dry,and in some places have cut for themselves channels with fallsufficient to drain the swamps on their sides for some distancethese channels are commonly filled more or less thickly withsilicious stones, often being casts of some bivalve.What is here called "rotten limestone," probably underliesthis whole region, and is found in digging wells, where theyhave to be sunk deeply ; and where this is the case, the wateris commonly impregnated with what seems to be putrid animalmatter, which renders it exceedingly disagreeable, and, in thegeneral opinion, unhealthy.At the distance of about one hundred and twenty miles fromthe sea, the rotten limestone ceases, and mica-schist begins to befound in the beds of rivers and other deep excavations ; here,also, the hills are higher and steeper, and oak and hickory