Gold of Uie CaroUnas. 51 



It seems, that Prof. Olmsted supposed the gold embraced in ar- 

 gillite,* Mr. Rothe assigned it to granite, and Prof. Mitchell expresses 

 less certainty on this point. It is not a subject of surprise to a geol- 

 ogist, to learn, that there is such a difference of opinion among the 

 most careful and- judicious observers. Were all the detritus swept 

 from the earth, leaving the rock formations naked and clean, mere 

 inspection would settle this, and numerous other important geological 

 questions. As it is, we are left to infer much from a few well ascer- 

 tained facts. 



This day, Nov. 7, 1829, Dr. Isaac Branch of Abbeville, S. C. 

 gave me a fine suite of specimens from Charlotte, (Cabarras Co.) of 

 the gold, gangue, and rock walls of that remarkable formation. 

 Though I had seen numerous specimens of the gold and its quartzose 

 gangue, I had never seen perfect specimens of the rock before, with 

 the gold and gangue attached to it. The rock is most surely the 

 talcose slate of Prof. Strouve. Its gangue is the quartz which is 

 found, exclusively, in the talcose slate. In these specimens, specular 

 iron ore is associated with the gold ; and the gangue is that interme- 

 diate variety between the opake milky quartz of the argillite, and the 

 translucent variety of tlie granite. All the quartz contained in tlie 

 talcose slate of Taughconnuk and of other places in New England 

 and New York, is precisely the same. One of the specimens has its 

 gangue connected with coarse novaculite. The same fact was no- 

 ticed by Prof. Olmsted. I have never seen novaculite in connex- 

 ion with any American rock, but talcose slate. The localities of no- 

 vaculite in Memphremagog, Belchertown, &£C. are merely talcose 

 slate, where the talc diminishes in proportional quantity, and becomes 

 more closely, (perhaps chemically,) combined with silex and alumine. 

 These specimens precisely resemble the talcose slate of Hawley, 

 Mass. which embraces the specular and micaceous iron ore. 



From the geographical situation of these gold mines, they all ap- 

 pear to be embraced in the range of talcose slate, which forms Kil- 

 lington Peak in Vermont, and runs down along the heads of Deer- 

 field River, Mass. through Hawley, and appears more or less con- 



* In the second part of his Report, written in 1825, Prof. Olmsted remarks, that he 

 had originally supposed the " slate formation," (consisting not merely of argillite, 

 but of novaculite, talc slate and several others,) to be the peculiar repository of the 

 gold, but that subsequent observations had taught liim that it extended likewise over 

 a region based on granite and gneiss. — (See Geological Reports made to the Board of 

 Agriculture of N. Caioliua, 1826.) 



