Remarhs on the Gold Mines of Virginia. Ill 



precious metal, being discovered in all these situations, as well as in 

 various other places upon the land, the explorations were, for some 

 time prosecuted with considerable energy, as may be inferred from 

 the diggings in many places, and more especially from the great piles 

 of gravel now lying near the principal branch. They remain still, 

 to a great extent unwashed, and it is believed they would pay well, 

 if subjected throughout, as portions of them have already been, to 

 the rocker and to amalgamation. This will probably be done at 

 some future period of more leisure and convenience. That it has 

 not been already done, must doubtless be attributed to the discovery 

 very soon after the surface gold had been found, of the rich vein of 

 auriferous quartz, which, with its contents, will now claim our atten- 

 tion. 



This vein has the same bearing and inclination as those already 

 described in connection with the slaty rocks, between which it lies. 

 The vein is over one foot in thickness. The quartz is, in general, 

 firm and compact ; occasionally it is porous and interspersed with 

 iron pyrites and a dark iron ore, probably proceeding from their de- 

 composition. The slaty rock is much decomposed — or as it is term- 

 ed by the miners — it is rotten : it is therefore, at least in the upper 

 strata, easily broken or cut by tools ; it, as well as the quartz of the 

 vein, is much stained by iron, and both are, to a degree, mixed in 

 the heaps of ore. In the more profound depths of the mines, it is 

 to be expected that the rocks will be found firm, and that they will 

 require, (as in many mines of the gold region they now do,) blasting 

 by gun-powder. As in penetrating into the earth we recede from 

 the influence of the atmosphere and of the weather, we are to ex- 

 pect that both the vein of quartz and its rocky walls will oppose 

 more resistance to the miner than they do near the surface. The 

 vein of quartz which has been worked in this mine, has been pene- 

 trated by two shafts, one seventy and one forty feet deep : they are 

 connected by two parallel adits — one of which is at the depth of 

 forty feet and the other of seventy ; the shafts are one hundred and 

 five feet apart, but the adits are one hundred and ten feet long. The 

 flow of water into these excavations is so considerable, that a feeble 

 horse power, which is at present applied by buckets connected with 

 the horizontally revolving machine, called a whim, is quite insufficient 

 to keep the shafts and adits clear. The ore is therefore not at this 

 time raised from the mine, nor is it now possible to descend into the 

 adits, without several days of previous labor in raising the water. 



