Remarks on the Gold Mines of Virginia. ii 
precious metal, being discovered in all these situations, as well as in 
various other places upon the land, the explorations were, for some 
time prosecuted with considerable energy, as may be inferred from 
the diggings in many places, and more especially from the great piles 
of gravel now lying near the principal branch. They remain still, 
to a great extent unwashed, and it is believed they would pay well, 
if subjected throughout, as portions of them have already been, to 
the rocker and to amalgamation. This will probably be done at 
some future period of more leisure and convenience. That it has 
not been already done, must doubtless be attributed to the discovery 
very soon after the surface gold had been found, of the rich vein of 
auriferous quartz, which, with its contents, will now claim our atten- 
tion. 
This vein has the same bearing and inclination as those already 
described in connection with the slaty rocks, between which it lies. 
The vein is over one foot in thickness. The quartz is, in general, 
firm and compact ; occasionally it is porous and interspersed with 
iron pyrites and a dark iron ore, probably proceeding from their de- 
composition. The slaty rock is much decomposed—or as it is term- 
ed by the miners—+zt is rotten: it is therefore, at least in the upper 
strata, easily broken or cut by tools; it, as well as the quartz of the 
vein, is much stained by iron, and both are, to a degree, mixed in 
the heaps of ore. In the more profound depths of the mines, it is 
to be expected that the rocks will be found firm, and that they will 
require, (as in many mines of the gold region they now do,) blasting 
y gun-powder. As in penetrating into the earth we recede from 
the influence of the atmosphere and of the weather, we are to ex- 
pect that both the vein of quartz and its rocky walls will oppose 
more resistance to the miner than they do near the surface. The 
vein of quartz which has been worked in this mine, has been pene- 
trated by two shafts, one seventy and one forty feet deep: they are 
connected by two parallel adits—one of which is at the depth of 
forty feet and the other of seventy ; the shafts are one hundred and 
five feet apart, but the adits are one hundred and ten feet long. The 
flow of water into these excavations is so considerable, that a feeble 
horse power, which is at present applied by buckets connected with 
the horizontally revolving machine, called a whim, is quite insufficient 
to keep the shafts and adits clear. The ore is therefore not at this 
time raised from the mine, nor is it now possible to descend into the 
adits, without several days of previous labor in raising the water. 
