2 Gold Mines of Georgia. 



er at one and the same time. If they reflect, however, they will 

 discover reasons to modify their opinions, and adopt a more plausi- 

 ble and perhaps correct theory. The geological character of this 

 part of the country, is denominated primitive according to Eaton, 'pri- 

 mary by Bakewell, and inferior stratified or nonfosilliferous by De 

 la Beche. I have generally applied the word original, to distinguish 

 these rocks from the others. They are gneiss, mica and talcose 

 slate, hornblende and granite ; the predominating rock being the first 

 named and alternating, in strata of various thickness, from three inch- 

 es to thirty feet. The gneiss occurs, indurated, more frequently, 

 however, in a state of decomposition, but still accupying its original 

 position. When indurated, it formes the skeletons or bases of the 

 ridges, while the decomposed portion, yielding readily to the action 

 of water, is washed away leaving vallies. On this irregular surface, 

 rest the deposits, consisting of rounded or " rolled" and angular frag- 

 ments of quartz, gneiss, hornblende, &c. with smaller fragments of ey- 

 anite, garnets, catseye, jasper, pyrites, and brown oxide of iron, which 

 often cements them all together, and causes them to appear as if 

 burned without heat. Owing chiefly to the extensive range of the 

 garnets, it is only in the river deposit, that they occur in abundance. 

 The gravel of the branches, had evidently resulted from the disinte- 

 gration of the rock in their neighborhood. In this gravel, as it is call- 

 ed, which varies from one foot to four feet in depth, the gold is found, 

 and generally at the bottom of the bed. Above the gravel there is 



■ 



a bed of sand, with scales of mica, varying from three to twenty feet 

 deep, on a bed of clay with angular fragments of quartz, from to five 

 feet deep. The fragments of rock forming this gravel, have the 

 M rolled" appearance, according generally, with the size of the stream 

 of water adjacent to the deposit. This shews, at once, that the agent 

 producing these deposits, has acted slowly, and when we remember 

 that caloric, electricity, air, water, &c. harve been at work chemical- 

 ly and mechanically, for at least six thousand ^ears, we cannot be 

 surprised that the hardest of the rocks, have in the course of ages, 

 yielded to the incessant action to which they have been subjected. 

 Over this irregular surface the rivers, when urged by a freshet, rush 

 with inconceivable fury, and they then have a transporting power, 

 sufficient to carry large blocks over rocky shoals, and to deposit them 

 (where an eddy is caused by a sudden bend in the river) in places 

 far below their former location. These eddies, having but a small 

 transporting power, soon permit an accumulation of rocks, sand, &c. 





