436 Becent Discovery of Gold Mines 



rock for the breadth of 100 miles, or more, inland from 

 tlie coast. When the traveller has passed over the diluvial 

 districts, and arrives at regular beds of rock ranging north- 

 east and south-west, he will not find them composed, as on 

 the eastern side of England, of the upper secondary or ter- 

 tiary formations; but he arrives at what geologists call a primi- 

 tive and transition country, like that on the western side of 

 England, Wales, and Scotland. In this part of the United 

 States, the primitive and transition rocks are not elevated 

 into lofty mountains, but form ranges of hills of very moderate 

 elevation ; and the granite, wherever it appears, is a low ridge, 

 destitute of those grand features which characterise granitic 

 mountains in many parts of Europe. 



In Dr. Maclure's account of the geology of the United 

 States, he describes the granitic ridge as immediately border- 

 ing the alluvial and diluvial land ; but according to Dr. Mac- 

 auly, the granitic ridge that runs through Georgia and the 

 Carolinas is situated several miles west of the border of the 

 alluvial depositions, and the gold veins occur in the low hills 

 that rise between this ridge and the diluvial land extending 

 north and south through these states. The gold districts 

 which have been hitherto examined occupy a surface of above 

 200 miles in length from north to south, and a breadth vary- 

 ing from 20 to 30 miles or more. From the specimens given 

 me by Dr. Macauly, the rocks are evidently what are deno- 

 minated transition rocks, and rocks allied to the older trap 

 formations. As we proceed beyond the gold districts, the 

 beds generally dip westward ; and are at length covered with 

 secondary rocks of sandstone and limestone, and include a 

 part of the great coal formation, extending to the north-west 

 beyond Pittsburg. It is the older secondary strata, that, rising 

 in various ridges in a north-east and south-west direction, 

 have received various names in the different states ; but which, 

 for conciseness, I have designated by the common name of the 

 Alleghany Mountains : their course may be seen traced in all 

 the best maps of the United States. This outline of the 

 country may suffice to convey a tolerably correct notion of the 

 geological position of the gold districts. 



It is now more than twenty years since native gold was 

 first discovered in the sands of some of the rivers in North 

 Carolina. One mass was found weighing 28 lbs. So early as 

 the year 1810, nearly 1400 oz. of this gold were received at 

 the mint of the United States. On a more extended search, 

 gold was found afterwards in grains and small pieces, in the 

 dry sands of many rivulets in both the Carolinas, and also in 

 Georgia. Indeed, it is rather extraordinary, that, in countries 



