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 

 fieid 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- 

 derstanding oithe veins in the greenstone formation.^ embra- 

 cing the gold region of North Carolina.'''' 



With regard to the repository of the gold, Mr. Olmsted re- 

 marks, that, " In almost any part of this region, gold may be 

 found in greater or less abundance at or near the surface of 

 the ground. Its true bed however is a thin stratum of grav- 

 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- 

 posed 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- 

 ed this formation oi secondary greenstone, passing into hornblende, in a north- 

 east direction from Salisbury as far as the Virginia line." — Rothe's Remarks. 



