102 RemarJcs on the Gold Mines of Virginia. 



Louisa County, in the course of one week. It happens not unfre- 

 quently, that the vein mines are discovered in consequence of wash- 

 ing the earth, particularly in the branches. 



Busby's Mine. — This mine is wrought in solid quartz. A shaft 

 has been sunk to the depth of fifty seven feet, and it is intended to 

 sink it to seventy feet, until it strikes the vein at this depth ; this 

 vein is the first or the most easterly in the series. The thickness of 

 the quartz, as ascertained by excavating it between the strata of rock 

 in four proof pits, which have been sunk to the depth of from twenty 

 to twenty six feet, averaging twenty two feet, is from twelve to thir- 

 ty inches, averaging from fifteen to eighteen inches. In consequence 

 of the influx of water, it has become necessary to erect a steam en- 

 gine at the shaft ; the machinery is now at the place, protected by 

 a good framed engine-house, and will be soon in operation ; this, It 

 is expected, will effectually drain, not only the shaft and the vein to 

 which it leads, but the other veins also, which have been already 

 excavated, and will moreover serve to work the mills. The whim* 

 at the shaft and all the machinery connected with it, are well shel- 

 tered by a good framed building. There are also temporary log 

 tenements for the accommodation of the superintendant and his as- 

 sistants and laborers, and there are abundant materials at hand for 

 the erection of other buildings whenever they shall be needed. The 

 quartz in Busby's mine is very firm — its structure is coarsely granu- 

 lar, and it considerably resembles coarse loaf sugar; indeed, at the 

 mine, it has been significantly called sugar quartz ; much of it is, 

 apparently, free from all foreign matter, except the inherent gold, 

 and it is so white that even when pulverized, it shows no tint of 

 color. 



The quartz, with its included gold, is, at the mines, universally call- 

 ed ore. Strictly, the word ore should be applied only to the metal of 

 beds and veins, and especially to those combinations of metals with 

 other substances, e. g. with sulphur, oxygen, Stc, by which their 

 properties are more or less disguised ; and it is a liberty of speech, 

 to make it include also, the stony matrix or gangue which encloses 

 the metallic substances that form the proper ores. From necessity 

 I shall adopt the language now in general use in the gold region, and 

 I will, therefore, in compliance with general custom, call the aurifer- 

 ous quartz, ore of gold. 



* A technical name lor the machine that winds the rope. 



