meee ate f 
OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 91 
For example, the slates which are quite soft near the surface, become hard lower down; a correspond- 
‘ing change takes place in the lodes, which, with the same treatment, become less productive—not 
generally because the ores contain less gold, but because it becomes more difficult to extract it. 
Such changes are quite common and well known, but they are not those to which I alluded 
aboye: there” the lodes remain the same, massive quartz; but they often become more or less rich, 
in passing froin one species of rock to another. 
Not far from this i is the mine known as the Harman mine. The gangue is composed of iron 
pyrites, oxide of iron, quartz, and sulphuret of copper. 'The vein, though not thick, is very regular, 
and the ground favorable. It is exposed at the foot of the hill, so that there is ample room for 
drainage. Besides, the indications of copper are far greater than at any other locality in the State. 
At the heups of refuse ore and waste, near the mouth of the pit, a considerable quantity of sulphate of 
copper is formed by the spontaneous decomposition of the copper pyrites. In the process of grind- 
ing and amalgamation, the sulphate of copper was reduced by the iron wheels, and perhaps also 
during the process of roasting the ore: the copper was of course taken up by the mereury, and it 
alloyed the gold so that the whole was worth only about forty or fifty cents the dwt. This did 
not, in any way, affect the productiveness of the mine, yet I believe it, in some measure, induced 
its abandonment. I trust that the proprietor will again resume the working of that interesting 
mine, if it be but merely to explore it for the copper, and it certainly contains gold enough to pay 
the expense of exploration. 
A few miles distant from these are the Fair Forest mines proper, and West’s mine. They are 
on a narrow ridge of talco-micaceous and talcose slates, wedged in, as it were, between strata of 
compact slaty hornblende rock, and thinning out towards the North. They present very few pecu- 
liarities to distinguish them from each other. 
The precious metal is disseminated in the slates, but confined to certain limits, that may be dis- 
tinguished by the quartz, which is generally granular and ferruginous, and more abundant than in 
the unproductive slates. Both portions of the slates are, however, quite disintegrated, so that the 
mining proceeds with great ease, until a depth of ninety or one hundred feet is attained, when they 
become quite hard and difficult of excavation. 
An adit level was commenced at the Fair Forest mine, but was abandoned long before the gold- 
» bearing beds were reached, on account of the difficulty of the work—although such an adit would 
have drained the whole hill. No one unacquainted with the subject would suspect that the slates 
excavated here were the same as those on the surface; the latter being quite soft—yielding readily 
to the pick; the others tough and flinty, resembling hornstone. The oxide of iron, which gives a 
* ferruginous character to the surface slates, is, in the adit, sulphuret of iron. Very small quartz 
veins are found, intersecting the hard slates, and I think it probable that the quartzose portion of 
the top slates may be due to these veins, although they are not so readily distinguishable in the 
decomposed slates. It is quite certain that the auriferous portions contain more quartz, for they are 
readily distinguished by the miners by the mere touch. 
The mining, as hitherto conducted here, is most deplorable. The ore is taken out in open-cast 
workings of considerable extent, carried on in the direction of the strike of the beds, and with the 
dip. When pursued in this way to the depth of a few yards, of course the hanging wall of the 
mine falls in, and is abandoned; or, if resumed again, it is with difficulty, and much danger. 
