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Two
THE STATE
Many whalebones have been found near Tarboro, as well as at other points
in that section. Above is a nearly perfect atlas (neckbonc) of a whale, found
in the marl beds exposed along Kirby Creek, Northampton County.
Whales At Tarboro
I II I V uctiijill.v were lliere. many thousands of years
ago. And many other radical changes have taken
place in the topography of \orth Carolina since the
Miocene era.
By
С.
T. HARRIS
★
THE change* which have tab»
place in the formation of the
world stagger the imagination of
mankind. Vast continents have been
submerged under the sene, while other."
liavo been raised above the waters.
Here and rliero new islands have ap¬
peared. Mountainous area* have been
levelled off while river- have suddenly
emerged where only dry land existed
before.
Geol
this is !
(bore b
Ini
ists claim that at one time,
•n of North Carolina in the
of Raleigh bad a higher olo-
ban did Asheville. Whether
or not, the fact remains that
re been many changes in the
ana iormation ot our state,
able evidences have been found
r> .1,;. . I...... ....
Found Many Whalebones
In recent years, early geological
representatives of the modern whale
have been found in great abundance
in some of the innrl bods of the Coastal
Plain section of the state, especially
in a zone a few miles wide, extending
from near Tarboro northeastwardly
through Edgecombe, Halifax and
Northampton counties into Virginia.
This U proof that nil of that area of
the state at one time was submerged
Mow a great depth of water. Speak¬
ing of some of the mnrl-bed discoveries
in the eastern part of North Carolina,
Wm. F. Prouty, head of the Depart¬
ment of Geology of the University of
North Carolina gave me the following
information:
"One of the great sources of attrac-
tion of the State Museum at Raleigh
is the whale exhibit. There are huge
skeletons of two of the best known
species of our modern wholes: the
whalebone, or baleen whale, and the
toothed, or sperm wluile. Moth of these
forms came from the North Carolina
coast waters.
Bones Arc Extremely Fragile
“A number of whale skeletons have
h'i*n uncovered from time to time in
the bolt of Miocene sediments in Edge-
combe, Halifax. Northampton and
other countie.». It has never been pos¬
sible to get out complete one of these
August 10, 1935
fossil whale skeletons. When first un¬
covered. these bone* are so fragile and
water-soaked that they fall to pieces
•*f flu-ir own weight. One specimen,
uncovered at the municipal power
plant at Tarboro in 1925, must have
been a nearly complete skeleton of the
whalebone (baleen) type. The length
of this Miocene whale (about the first
of the modern type of whales) seems
to have been approximately 50 feet,
judging from the length <>f the two
well-preserved lower jaw-bones. These
were 13*4 feet long.
“A number of whale skeleton# of
similar kind and size have been un¬
covered in the neighborhood of Fish¬
ing Creek. Last year several students
from the Geology Department of the
University dug out the remains of n
whale buried in the Miocene strata
along Kirby Creek, in Eastern North¬
ampton County. In this locality the
beds carried fragmentary remains of
a number of whale skeleton#. One
nearly perfect atlas ( neck-bone) and
many ribs, vertebrae, jaw-bone seg¬
ments and a mas* of the baleen or
whalebone were obtained.
Water Came Far Inland
"It is apparent from all this that
during Miocene time*. the seashore was
not only far inland from where it is
during our day and time, but that the
carcasses of stranded whales left their
l «ones along the shore to lie buried in
the Miocene shells and sand-beds for
our Inter inspection.”
In addition to whale-bones, there are
many other evidences to prove that
radical change# have taken place in
the topography of North Carolina.
Oyster-shells and other shells have
lieen found
20П
or more mile# inland.
So have various other deposits, indi¬
cating change# in formation. On the
other hand, were it possible to make
excavations in land which is now un¬
der water, the chances are that we
would find plenty of proof that peo¬
ple at one time worked and lived there.
Thrilling talc^ hav«-
1-ч>п
written by
innumerable writer# throughout the
ages, but far more thrilling than any
of these imaginative stories would be
the true fact# about tile changes which
have taken place in the formation of
North Carolina and the world as a
whole. It is a tale, however, of which
only small sections are revealed: we
can only guess at the rest. It is as
though you found a few pages of a
book and were never able to find the
rest of the volume. The pages toll you
that the volume at one time or another
actually existed — but il has disap¬
peared.
