THE COGGINS (APPALACHIAN) GOLD MINE* 



BY JOSEPH HYDE PRATT 



The Coggins Mine is located in the northeastern part of 

 Montgomery County, North Carolina, 11/^ miles north of Eldo- 

 rado, the nearest postotfice, and 12 miles northeast of Troy, the 

 county-seat. The nearest railroad point is Whitney, on a branch 

 of the Southern Railway, running from Salisbury to Norwood, 

 a distance of about 7 miles nearly west. 



A description of this mine will indicate or give the salient 

 features of several other mines in this general district. 



GEOLOGY 



The country rocks of this area are composed of argillaceous 

 slates or schists, which have probably been derived from land 

 detritus or waste, and varying amounts of tuffaceous material. 

 Cutting these rocks at sharp angles to their schistosity are dia- 

 base dikes, which vary from a few to 6 feet in width. The strike 

 of the schistosity of the slates is approximately N. 42° E., 

 and they are dipping from 75° to 80° northwest. The slates are 

 both soft and silicified and carry quartz lenses or stringers from 

 very small narrow ones to some that are 10 or more feet in 

 width. These slates have very evidently been faulted, and the 

 resulting fault line has followed pretty much the schistosity of 

 the slates ; but in some instances it has cut across this at a very 

 sharp angle. The result of this faulting has been the formation 

 of quartz veins referred to, and also to a general silicification of 

 the slates. The width of the slates which have been subjected 

 to this mineralization and silicification varies up to as much as 

 50 to 60 feet. Another result of the mineralization has been the 

 introduction of considerable gold-bearing pyrite into the hands 

 of schists or slate. Some of this pyrite occurs in minute cubes up 

 to one-eighth of an inch in diameter. There is a decided differ- 

 ence in the origin of the free gold in the quartz seams or slateg 

 and that which occurs in the gold-bearing pyrite. I believe it 

 will be found that considerable of the gold in the pyrite occurs 



* Reprinted from Economic Paper No. 34, of the North Carolina Geological 

 and Economic Survey, pp. 49-59. 



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