THE CHEROKEE COUNTRY. 59 



DESCRIPTION OF THE CHEROKEE COUNTRY, GEORGIA.* 



My Dear Sir : Enclosed I send you Col. Siiackelfobd's letter. His reaidence being in tbe mounVain 

 country of Georgia, enables him to answer yours, 1 li-ust, entirely satisfactory to you. 



Most respectfully, your ob't servant, J. S. THOMAS. 



J. S. Ski.vner, Esq. Editor of the Farmers' Library : Ca.ssville, April -Zi, IBlfi. 



Dear Sir : Our mutual friend, Col. John S. Thomas, of Milledsreville, informs 

 mc that he has referred you to me for an answer to the inquiries contained in 

 your note addressed to him on the od ultimo. 



I am happy to gratify, as far as in my power, his and your wishes, and to con- 

 tribute anything tiiat may be of advantage to your Iriends in Maryland and Vir- 

 ginia, as well as to the people of North-Western Georgia ; for I assure you we 

 shall esteem the immigration to this part of the State of such characters as you 

 have referred to, a most desirable acquisition to our society, independent of the 

 other general benelits likely to result to us from their more improved systems of 

 Agriculture and husbandry. 



In order that you may better understand the facts I am about to communicate, 

 I send accompanying this letter a rough map of the country referred to in yours. 

 The map was never very perfect, and the additions I have made do not pretend 

 to accuracy, but it will assist to give you a general idea of the character and to- 

 pography of the country. 



The Clierolcee territory of Georgia was first divided into four unequal sections, 

 as is shown in the colored ])erpendicuiar lines running north and south. Each 

 section was subdivided into districts, nine miles square, except those that were 

 necessarily fractional. The districts were again surveyed into lots, some of one 

 hundred and si.xty acres and some of forty acres each. The counties into which 

 the whole territory has been divided I have atteinpted to mark for you on the 

 map. I have also rudely sketched a much more important feature in the irre<m- 

 lar marks running along the line of the Coahutta and Pine Log mountains, from 

 the twenty-seventh district of the second section nearly south to the fourth dis- 

 trict of the third section, and thence south-westwardly to the Alabama line in the 

 seventeenth district of the fourth section. This I have marked as the dividing 

 line that separates the granite and older crystaline rocks from the secondary and 

 carboniferous scries. 1 have been thus particular because the marks and memo- 

 randa made upon the map are not very legible. 



East of the line last referred to, the country is mountainous, and aflbrds an 

 abundant supply of summer pasturage or range. The river bottoms are o-ener- 

 ally narrow, seldom exceeding half a mile in width, but usually very rich. The 

 coves on the smaller streams are of a similar character. The hill-sides and 

 mountain-slopes of Lumpkin, Union, Cherokee and Gilmer counties are frequent- 

 ly of rich soil, and eminently productive of wild grasses. The counties of For- 

 syth and Cobb present, in compensation for the absence of richer hill-sides, more 

 extensive level tracts of land, but with some exceptions inferior in the character 

 of the soil. In all this general region, lying east and south of the line referred 

 to, and including part of the counties of Paulding, Cass and Murray, and the 

 whole of the counties of Cobb, Forsyth, Lumpkin, Union and Gilmer, gold mines 

 are found — some of them, especially late discoveries in Gilmer and Union, of the 

 richest description. In many places there are indications of other valuable met- 

 als not yet certainly ascertained. This division of the country is well adapted, 

 so far as summer wild pastures are considered, to the raising of sheep, cattle and 

 mules—the higher latitudes and mountain ranges affording the most luxuriant 

 grasses, and being at the same time less subject to failure from drouth than 



* Being one of the fruits of inquiries into the undeveloped, or not generally known, industrial resource* 

 and natural advantages of the South and South- West — made by the Editor of the Farmers' Library, on a 

 tour in the early spring of 1846. 

 (155) 



