376 Prof. Olmsted on the Gold Mines of North Carolina. 



1000 square miles. With a map of N. Carolina one may 

 easily trace its boundaries, so far as they have been hitherto 

 observed. From a point taken eight miles west by south of 

 the mouth of the Uwharre, with a radius of eighteen miles, 

 describe a circle, — it will include the greatest part of the 

 county of Montgomery, the northern part of Anson, the north- 

 eastern corner of Mulenberg, Cabarrus, a little beyond Con- 

 cord on the west, and a corner of Rowan and of Randolph. 

 In almost any part of this region, gold may be found in greater 

 or less abundance, at or near the surface of the ground. Its 

 true bed, however, is a thin stratum of gravel inclosed in a 

 dense mud, usually of a pale blue, but sometimes of a yellow 

 colour. On ground that is elevated and exposed to be washed 

 by rains, this stratum frequently appears at the surface; and 

 in low grounds, where the alluvial earth has been accumulated 

 by the same agent, it is found to the depth of eight feet : where 

 no cause operates to alter its original depth, it lies about three 

 feet below the surface. Rocky River and its small tributaries 

 which cut through this stratum, have hitherto proved the most 

 fruitful localities of the precious metal. 



The prevailing rock in the gold country is argillite. This 

 belongs to an extensive formation of the same, which crosses 

 tlie State in numerous beds, forming a zone more than twenty 

 miles in width, and embracing, among many less important 

 varieties of slate, several extensive beds of novaculite, or whet- 

 stone slate, and also beds of petrosiliceous porphyry and of 

 greenstone. These last lie over the argillite, either in detached 

 blocks, or in strata that are inclined at a lower angle than that. 

 This ample field of slate I had supposed to be the peculiar 

 repository of the gold ; but a personal examination discovered 

 that the precious metal, embosomed in the same peculiar stra- 

 tum of mud and gravel, extends beyond the slate on the west, 

 spreading, in the vicinity of Concord, over a region of granite 

 and gneiss. 



A geographical description of the gold country would pre- 

 sent little that is interesting. The soil is generally barren, and 

 the inhabitants are mostly poor and ignorant. The traveller 

 passes the day without meeting with a single striking or beau- 

 tiful object, either of nature or of art, to vary the tiresome 

 monotony of forests and sandhill?, and ridges of gravelly quartz. 

 Here and there a log hut or cabin, surrounded by a few acres 

 of corn and cotton, marks the little improvement which has 

 been made by man, in a region singularly endowed by nature. 

 The road is generally conducted along the ridges, which slope 

 on either hand into valleys of moderate depth, consisting chiefly 

 of fragments of quartz, either strewed coarsely over the ground, 



or 



