328 Gold Veins of the United States' Mine, Va. 



were ? Veins usually underlay more near the surface where the 

 ground is less firm, than they do in depth, where they pass through 

 rocks and a harder country; such is the case with No. 1. vein, and 

 it is conformable with the laws which veins in their dip usually follow. 

 In miners' phrase the country between the depths of forty five and 

 sixty feet and about these veins,- has been much confused. No. 2. 

 vein has a heave of about five feet to the west. Here there are 

 countless threads of the vein, some a foot, others a yard, and others 

 a fathom or more in length, and an inch in thickness, laying horizon- 

 tal and across the course of the vein, as if this had been suddenly 

 broken asunder and violently thrown one side, leaving fragments 

 strewed along its track. Threads of similar quartz frequently ac- 

 company the vein, but instead of laying horizontally and across its 

 course, they diverge from it, run parallel to it with nearly the same 

 inclination and finally come into the vein again. 



Opposite to this heave, 1 expected to find a corresponding, or the 

 marks of a corresponding heave in No. 3. vein. But instead of that, 

 the country was more firm, the stratification of the gneiss was urfdis-^ 

 turbed, the vein thinned out and entirely disappeared ; it was repla- 

 ced by Mllas which marked its cours^e for more than forty feet, when 

 the vein again formed, being much richer here than it was where it 

 disappeared. 



The quartz from each of these veins has very much the same ap- 

 pearance and the same accompanying minerals. With a slight blow 

 on its vertical edge, its tendency is to cleave readily into rhomboidal 

 plates, but the cross cleavage not being perfect it divides into irreg- 

 ular oblong plates, the faces of which are mottled with the black 

 oxide of manganese under the dentritic form, many of them pre- 

 senting, with a little aid from fancy, beautiful landscape views in 

 miniature. 



Most of this quartz is translucent ; it fractures with almost a milky- 

 whiteness. In some specimens the gold may be seen ivithin the 

 gangue, relieving its whiteness with delicate orange colored spots. 

 Here the sulphuret of iron is more rare, blende and galena are seldom 

 seen, while pyritous copper and malachite are more abundant ; spots 

 of black tourmaline are occasionally seen ; and the iron pyrites as- 

 sume a reticulated appearance. 



Vein No. 4 lies W. N. W. and E. S. E. and dips to the north. 

 It is between four and five feet thick. The quartz is similar in its 

 tabular structure to that from veins No. 2 and 3 ; but the associated ' 



