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Olmsted on the Gold Mines of North Carolina. 15 
Jumps. ‘The inference i a that this gold existed originally, 
that is, before its removal to its present position, in pieces 
somewhat larger than foabe found at present, but still of a 
moderate size. Whether these pieces lay s to 
one another in a large vein, or whether ig were see 
abroad in individual masses, it is, erha impossible to 
decide. The fact that small veins have cen found, unt 
ersing quartz, favours the idea that this was the original 
mode of existe 
There 
4 
* 
are some smabtancss which induce the belief, 
that the materials of the deposit itself were derived from 
the great Slate formation before mentioned. The green 
mud may be supposed to have been formed out of the 
Chiorite and argillaceous rock, with which the formation 
—— the greenstone pebbles c orrespond with a class 
of rocks of the. same formation ; and the quartzose’ 
well in appearance to the larger fociieditbine 
wad answer 
that are profusely scattered over the ridges of the slate 
country. Morcover, two masses of gold, each weighing 
several pwts. have been found in the county of Orange, 
over the same formation, 60 or 70 miles north of the gold 
region. Hence might be derived some faint hopes of find- 
ing the gold in native veins or beds; but still these may 
have been in — ‘fountains of the Great deep” that were 
broken u 
If we suppose that gold dust is universally derived from 
dilavial action on lumps of the same metal, it will account for 
two well known facts ;—first, the very general diffusion of 
particles of gold among Be the sands of all countries; 
and, secondly, the circumstance of many rivers that were 
anciently auriferous, having now ceased to be so; as the 
Tagus, Po, and Pactolus (Kirwan, Geological Essays, 402.) 
This author also adds, that it appears by the testimony of 
Disdown that some of the rivers of France were much 
more abundantly auriferous in former ag 
at present. [he dust derived from diluv: 
conceived to be exhausted or washed out in the course of 
aoe while there is now no sae going ferward for sup- 
pl ying the waste. 
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