ELISHA MITCHELL SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY. 87 



OCCURRENCE OE GOLD IN M()NTGO>rERY 

 COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA. 



BY J. M. MOREHEAD. 



In his Geological Report of the inivlland counties of North 

 Carolina* Dr. Enimons says, concerning the origin of the gold 

 in the Uharie Mountain region of Montgomery county: 



^'One of the most interesting instances of the occurrence of 

 gold in consolidated sediments is at a place called Zion, twelve 

 miles from Troy." And again in a following paragraph : "The 

 gold which has been obtained was derived from the debrvi of the 

 rock, but the rock itself sometimes shows particles of gold '^; and 

 further, " notwithstanding the evidences there are of the sedi- 

 mentary origin of the gold it is a curious and interesting fact 

 that it is visible in scams which traverse the rock."f 



These quotations and the context show clearly Dr. Emmons' 

 opinion to have been that the gold of the gravel of this region 

 was deposited as a sediment contemporaneous with the rock, and 

 along with the subsequent processes of weathering of the rock 

 and the formation of the deposits that the gold which was f )rm- 

 erly distributed in finer particles through the rock, later by the 

 segregating process collected into larger particles and nuggets. 



From observations made during the past summer at the Sam 

 Christian Gold Mine and vicinity near Zion I am led to doubt 

 the correctness of this opinion and to believe rather that at least 

 much the larger part, if not all, of the gold found in these 

 gravels came from the numerous small quartz veins which tra- 

 verse the region in a N. W. by S. E. course and with a nearly 

 vertical dip. 



The reasons for this belief are as follows: No o:old of any 

 consequence has ever been found in places where there were no 

 evidences of quartz veins either broken down or intact. The 



*North Carolina Geo!o>^icaI Sm-vey, Emmons, New York and Raleigh, 185n, p. 135. 

 tSame as above, pp. i:35-13(k 



