2 Gold Region of North Carolina. 
formation of the same which crosses the state in numerous 
beds, forming a zone more than twenty miles in width, and - 
embracing among many less important varieties of slate, sev- 
eral extensive beds of novaculite or whetstone slate, and also 
beds of petro-siliceous 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 stratum of 
mud and gravel, extends beyond the slate on the west, 
spreading in the vicinity of Concord, over a region of granite 
and gneiss,” 
Mr. Rothe says, on the other hand, that “ Granite is the 
base of the formations of the gold region of North Caroli- 
na.” By this it is not meant apparently that granite is the 
rock upon which the others are incumbent ; and which is 
therefore covered up by them, but that it is the predominant 
rock—for a description, immediately follows. ‘ It is consti- 
tuted of coarse crystals, and its surface is very irregular. 
On its more elevated situations it has been much worn by 
water in early times, and now lies exposed at places on the 
surface of the earth, in large masses, some of them round, 
as on the small mountain four miles south-east of Salisbury. 
In the lower part of the country greenstone and greenstone 
slate are commonly found in beds in the granite.”* “ These 
remarks,” he says again, “ were necessary to a correct un- 
V 
el inclosed in a dense mud, usually of a pale blue, but some- 
times of a yellow color. On ground that is elevated and ex- 
sed 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 
“This greenstone is secondary, as appears by note d. “I have follow- 
into hornblende, in a north- 
Remarks. 
; a Fe Oo r ? I 
east direction from Salisbury as far as the Virginia line.”"—Rothe’s 
a 
