Remarks on the Gold Mines of Virginia. 105 



rock, the same which, in a greater or less degree, pervades the gold 

 region. Here, in the portions nearest to the surface, the rock is 

 completely destroyed, and is little else than a red clay ;* lower down, 

 it becomes somewhat firmer, and shews, distinctly, the lines of stra- 

 tification and of the slaty structure. The inclination of the rock 

 and of the included quartz veins is about forty five degrees ; the di- 

 rection by compass, is about N. by E. and S. by W. The diame- 

 ter of the vein, which is at present wrought is, taking it at different 

 places, sixteen, eighteen, twenty four, twenty seven and thirty inches, 

 averaging about twenty four inches. The structure of the quartz 

 vein is distinctly laminar ; it divides easily into tabular portions, from 

 half an inch, to four or five inches in thickness, and these pieces 

 have cross divisions. Hence, the quartz is broken up with great 

 ease, especially as there is no adherence of the quartz to the slate, 

 and therefore blasting is not needed, nor are any instruments requi- 

 site except simple picks and crows, and other common tools. The 

 mine is, at present, approached by a single inclined plane or cov- 

 ered way thirty one feet long in the slant, and twenty five feet 

 deep in the perpendicular. There is another and a parallel shaft 

 fifty feet Aeep, but now filled in the lower twenty feet, by earth 

 washed in by recent rains. There is an adit connecting the two 

 shafts which slant in the direction of the vein ; the adit is seventy 

 feet long, in the entire length, and the vein is exposed through this 

 whole extent. I had full opportunity to examine the vein at the 

 bottom of the mine, and it is impossible that one should be found 

 more accessible or more easily wrought. With a view to a careful 

 examination of the proportion of gold, I caused pieces of the vein 

 to be knocked off in several places, at distances of twelve feet. 

 From each of these pieces, portions were broken, and being care- 

 fully examined with a magnifier, no traces of gold could be any 

 vs^here perceived. They were then pounded and sifted, as in the 

 case of the Busby mine ; nine pounds were washed, and the gold 

 was amalgamated and the amalgam decomposed by heat, precisely 

 as in the former case. 



From the nine pounds of ore, a button of gold was obtained 

 weighing eleven grains, which is in the proportion of one hundred 



* From which, by washing and subsidence, a good and very useful paint might 

 probably be prepared — admitting of various shades by the application of heat — 

 forming a strong color for coarse work, and an elegant one, if covered by copal 

 varnish. 



Vol. XXXII.— No. 1. 14 



