The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1896-07-02
GEOLOGY or NORTH CAROLINA
Prof. Cobb Discusses Its Influence on
Our Political History.

ciaD-Tbo students at the Sum
rne1 School were entertained last
| evening by Professor Collier Cobb, who
| Iectured on the Geology of North Car
| DINA as a determining force in our
| political history. The influence of
| environment upon all creatures is a
| fact of everyday observation; ana yet
4 so familiar are we with the adaptation
| of creatures to their surroundings that
| the shaping influence of these sur
| roundings is apt to escape our atten-
| ton. Not only is the lower life OF the
the land shaped by geographic condi-
| tions. but man himself is influenced
| more than any other animal by the cir
| cumstaces that surround him. Each
| of us is the result of forces that have
been in operation from the beginning,
and our very occupations depend upon
what has taken place in the geological
past. DR.. Holmes has told us that
child's education should be begun
hundred years before he is born. Even
our religious convictions and our po-
litical opinions We're determined for US
when the strata were deposited, when
the founda tion stones of the State were
laid.
''In Easern North Carolina cotton is
the chief staple, because the soil of
that region was once the sandy bottom
of shallow sea, extending well out to
the trough of the ocean, where now
flows warm and moisture-giving cur
rent. The up country produces grain
and tobacco, for the rocks which have
rotted through the ages into the soil
of that region contained the necessary
lime and potash in their feldspars.
The sands and limey elays of the La
Fayette formation in the East are now
making that section rival the West in
the raising of tobacco. The products
of the soil determine the occupations
of men, and their occupations influence
their political opinions.
The speaker then sketched the geo
logical history of the State and pointed
TO it's influence upon our social and
economic problems. Slavery was
profitable in the lowlands of the East.
Tla sameness of conditions over a wide
extended area there has given the
people unanimity of thought in politics,
while the diversity of structure and of
interests in the the West has made
men who differ from the Eastern peo-
pie in politics, and who disagree among
themselves. The political questions in
North Carolina are always questions
Of West and East, of up-country
against lowlands, of crystalline schists
and GRANTEES against unconsolidated
clays, sands and gravels. Such was the
state of Things in Colonial and Revolu-
tionary times, in the times of our civil
war and to-day. In one, at least, of our
western counties there never was n
slave. The men on the older rocks gem
orally opposed the secession movement.
The call for the secession convention
had its support mainly in the East, and
in the cities. Union sentiment was
stronger on the older rocks. Even
Wake county was opposed to the CON
vention. To-day the newspapers OF the
State, published on the older rocks,
have fought for a gold standard. The
one notable exception to this, the Raj
eigh News and Observer, has an editor
who was reared on the newer rocks
of the lowlands. The State Democratic
convention the other day, the counties
which voted for gold standard. Ca
| harrus, Castor, Iredell, Lincoln, Polk
and Rutherford. all lie upon the granite
rocks and crystalline sehists. Char
lotte and MecSlenburg fought for gold
but their delegates opposed it. They
have the trade of a large portion Of
South Carolina, where the newer rocks
have determined the thought OF the
people.
The geological structure has deter
mined the direction of our systems of
internal Improvements. The united
will of the people has been unable to
give us a North Carolina system of
railroads. Our old North Carolina
Railroad from the mountains TO the
sea, has been turned aside by the strike
of the rocks, the geological structure
of the country, to build up other States
and other ports than ours The Caro-
lima Central Railroad from Wilmington
to RutherforIlton, has conformed to
geological structure, and is no longer a
Carolina road Geological conditions
have changed the Wilmington and Wei
don road, leaving Goldsboro and Will
mington to the east. The most recent
effort at North Carolina road, the
Cape Fear and Yadkin Valley was for
ced TO build long branch TO Ben
nettsyille, conforming to the geological
structure, and rumor says that before
long it, too, will cease TO be a North
Carolina road.
But our geology and geography have
been OF much value to Us in other ways.
With our sandbars on the east, swamps
on the north and south, and moui1.
tains ON the west, we have kept our
original British population without
much admixture of the foreign blood
that is pouring into our country. When
Mr.. Charles Dudley Warner came to
North Carolina looking for dialect he
found pure English instead. Professor
n. $. Shaler says that the typical John
Bull is not found to-day in England.
but iii North Carolina, and that THE
purest English he has ever heard he
heard from party of school girls on
| the cars at Greensboro, n. c. Mr.. Chas
| Eliot Norton said several years ago
| that we had not yet been touched by
| the so-called civilization of the nine
teenth century. that we have preserved
| the best things of life OF two centuries
| and half ago. But these delightful
| peculiarities are passing away before