GEOLOGY. 25 



have already been found will be the precursors of a rich har- 

 vest of this most precious gem. 



The gold region of Georgia, from its richness and extent, is 

 the most remarkable feature of the primary rock formation. 

 Its veestern boundary is the western base of the Blue Ridge. 

 The richest deposits are found occupying a belt along the east- 

 ern slope of that range of mountains, varying in width from 

 fifteen to twenty miles ; but gold has been discovered at various 

 points one hundred miles to the east of it, as far as Columbia 

 county, and thence in a line, nearly parallel to the principal 

 belt, to Alabama. The gold is found in both vein and deposit 

 mines. In the former it generally occurs in quartose veins, 

 running through rocks of gneiss, mica schist, talcose schist, 

 and chlorite schist. The quartz forming the veins is usually 

 of a cellular structure, generally discoloured by iron, and with 

 the cavities more or less filled with a fine yellow ochre. The 

 gold, which varies much in the size of its particles, is found 

 either in small scales (its most usual form) in the cavities 

 or the fissures of the quartz, or in the yellow ochre, or in 

 combination with the sulphurets of iron, of copper, and of 

 lead, or united with silver. It sometimes, but rarely, exists 

 in the adjoining schistose rocks. 



The deposit mines are of alluvial formation, obviously pro- 

 duced by the washing down of the detritus of the auriferous 

 veins into the adjoining valleys. The schistose rocks, which 

 are of a more perishable character, having crumbled away, 

 and left the quartz veins exposed, the latter have fallen down 

 from a wani of support, and have been swept by torrents into 

 the valleys below. The quartz pebbles, and the harder por- 

 tions of the including rocks, and the gold, being heavy, would 

 be deposited at the bottom of the streams, and would occur in 

 the greatest quantity when there were the greatest inequa- 

 lities. The lighter materials would at first be swept down to 

 a lower point, or be deposited along the borders of the streams; 

 but, with a change of the beds of the streams, or a diminution 

 of their velocity, these materials w^ould gradually accumulate 

 over the original beds of pebbles and gold, and the valleys 

 would ultimately present the appearance which they now do, 

 of a stratum of several feet of alluvial loam covering another 



