meeting canals, an extensive system of water communication with the eastern and middle sections of the State.
Rivers. There are seven large rivers, flowing east and southeast from the Blue Ridge, through the middle and eastern divisions of the State, besides numerous smaller streams, which furnish indefinite water power through the middle section ; and in the eastern, together with the bays and sounds, they give an aggregate of more than 1,000 miles of inland navigation.
West of the Blue Ridge there are seven other large rivers, which flow westward into the Ohio and Mississippi, the largest of these being the great Tennessee, which is larger than the Danube, and is navigable from the western boun- •dar} r of this State for a thousand miles to the Mississippi.
Railroads. There are more than 1,100 miles of railroad already built, and several hundred more projected, which will be completed in a few years.
Seaports. Wilmington, Beaufort and Newbern are the principal shipping points within the State; and Norfolk, near the northern border, derives a large part of its business from this State.
GEOLOGY.
The geological structure of the State is very simple, the formations being arranged in zones parallel to the dominant mountain system, and to the Atlantic coast, and belonging almost entirely to two systems or ages, the Primary and Tertiary; the Secondary being represented only by two small troughs of Triassic in the middle region, and a few linear outcrops of Cretaceous near the coast. A thin covering of Quaternary overlies portions of the Tertiary.
Vie Primary Rocks, which occupy the western and middle regions, consist of granites, gneisses and schists, of the Laurentian division, with occasional narrow belts of Huro- nian slates, sandstones, limestones and quartzites ; the most