THE 



AMERICAN 



JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, &c. 



Art. I. — On the Geology of the Gold Region of North 

 Carolina, in a letter to the Editor, dated Aug. 25, 1828 ; 

 by Elisha Mitchell, Professor of Chemistry , Mineral- 

 ogy, and Geology, in the tJniversity of N. Carolina. 



TO PROFESSOR SILLIMAN. 



Dear Sir — It is with some hesitation and reluctance, that 

 I crave a place in the Journal, for a paper upon a subject 

 that has already twice occupied the attention of your read- 

 ers — the gold mines of N. Carolina — of which there is an ac- 

 count from the pen of Professor Olmsted in the ninth, and 

 another by Mr. Charles E. Rothe in the thirteenth volume. 

 Both of these communications include some notices of the 

 geological composition and structure of the district in which 

 the precious metal occurs. The first appears to contain one 

 leading and important error, (such as it is difficult to avoid 

 during a first examination) which is beginning to be propa- 

 gated into other books ;* and if it contain but one, it will fol- 

 low that the other has but slender claims to accuracy, since 

 the two are so much at variance with each other, that it 

 must be quite impossible for a person who has never been 

 upon the spot, to arrive by a collation of the two accounts, 

 at any probable conclusions respecting the geological char- 

 acter of that part of North Carolina in which the gold is 

 found. This will be evident from a comparison of the fol- 

 lowing extracts. 



Professor Olmsted remarks, that " The prevailing rock in 

 the gold country is argillite. This belongs to an exten-^ive 



*See Comstock's Mineralogy, page 176. Robinson's Catalogue, page 211. 



Vol. XVI.— No. 1. 1 



