4 Journal of the Mitchell Society [^Juns 



deposits that can be worked profitably with proper management. 

 There are many good deposits of the other two types that carry 

 sufficient values to make mining profitable. 



The gold area of the Southern Appalachian Region has been 

 divided into the following belts : 



Virginia belt. 



Southern Carolina belt. 



Carolina belt. 



South Mountain belt. 



Georgia belt. 



Alabama belt. 

 Of these the Carolina and Georgia belts are by far the most 

 important. 



In the Carolina belt of North Carolina and South Carolina 

 the area is about equally divided between igneous and sediment- 

 ary rocks. The eastern portion comprises the great series of 

 sedimentary slates, interbedded in which are irregular bands 

 and long lenses of volcanic rocks, representing tuffs, breccias and 

 flows, of which there are two types, rhyolitic and andesitic. The 

 western portion is made up wholly of igneous rocks. These are 

 of three general types — greenstone, diorite, and granite — to- 

 gether with numerous dikes of both acid and basic character, 

 each type showing more or less variation and local differences. 

 In a general way, it may be said, taking the rocks in order of 

 their relative ages, that the greenstone with its local tuffaceous 

 phases, is the oldest and most highly metamorphosed rock in the 

 area, the diorite next in order and the granite least of all. There 

 are at least four types of rock occurring as dikes. The oldest 

 dikes are of diorite, which cut the greenstone only. Following 

 this series, are the granite and quartz-porphyry dikes, which cut 

 both the greenstone and the diorite ; next in order are the fine- 

 grained diorite dikes, which cut both the granite and the diorite ; 

 and last is the series of diabase dikes, probably of Triassic age. 

 The region has suffered a period of severe dynamic meta- 

 morphism or mashing, consequent upon a great compressive 

 force which squeezed the beds into enormous folds; followed 

 by a time of chemical alteration and mineralization; which in 



