The Cumberland Mountains 



ought to see our gold mines. I agreed to stay 

 and went to the mines. Gold is found in small 

 quantities throughout the Alleghanies, and 

 many farmers work at mining a few weeks or 

 months every year when their time is not more 

 valuable for other pursuits. In this neighbor 

 hood miners are earning from half a dollar to 

 two dollars a day. There are several large 

 quartz mills not far from here. Common labor 

 is worth ten dollars a month. 



September //. Spent the day in botanizing, 

 blacksmithing, and examining a grist mill. 

 Grist mills, in the less settled parts of Tennes 

 see and North Carolina, are remarkably simple 

 affairs. A small stone, that a man might carry 

 under his arm, is fastened to the vertical shaft 

 of a little home-made, boyish-looking, back- 

 action water-wheel, which, with a hopper and 

 a box to receive the meal, is the whole affair. 

 The walls of the mill are of undressed poles cut 

 from seedling trees and there is no floor, as 

 lumber is dear. No dam is built. The water is 

 conveyed along some hillside until sufficient 

 [35 1 



