Transactions of the Oeological Society of Pennsylvania. 349 



Ridge from Virginia to Alabama. Mr. Taylor regards the gold re- 

 gion of the United States as richer, than the similar regions of Bra- 

 zil, Mexico and Russia, while the security to persons and property, 

 the abundance of food, the mildness of the climate and the practica- 

 ble surface of the country, present important adventitious advanta- 

 ges, not enjoyed in South America, nor all of them in Russia. 



In Georjiia, the richest mineral belt is in the talcose slate and 

 granite formations, alternating with hornblende slate, gneiss and 

 chlorite slate ; parallel mineral belts are found also near Augusta, 

 but they cease with the termination of the primitive region. 



The most productive researches for gold have been made in the 

 branch mines or stream mines, in the beds of rivers, rivulets and 

 ravines. 



In such cases^ little capital is needed and few machines except 

 rockers, and the return is almost immediate and daily ; from five to ten 

 penny weights per day, for a single hand are not uncommon, and one 

 hundred and twenty have been obtained. In the loose deposits, the 

 crold is found in a bed of fjravel from nine inches to three feet in 

 thickness, and from three to six feet from the surface of the ground ; 

 it rests on slate, generally talcose, and is evidently the result of the 

 destruction of a vein or veins crossing a watered ravine or taking the 

 same direction with it. 



Mr. Taylor considers the process of washing, as superior to that 

 used in any country ; the Burke rocTcer of North Carolina will 

 wash a Cwt. (seven hundred to one thousand bushels of gravel) a 

 day, and the machine costs, when complete, but twenty five dollars. 

 " In working the trenches or pits of a branch mine, numerous veins, 

 partially decomposeed, are to be seen in the soft bed of the talcose 

 slate, where the superincumbent strata have been removed." " The 

 gravel strata are composed, entirely, of the broken fragments of the 

 quartz veins, which are to be met with outcropping on the banks of 

 the ravine. The ore itself, sometimes undecomposed, is met with 

 in the bed, and all the characters of the mineral, found in the vein, 

 are also to be met with in the branch gravel. The gold also is sim- 

 ilar — for gold in some mines is entirely distinct in character, fi-om 

 that of others. There was not a mine in Georgia, the gold of which 

 could not be distinguished from any other of the same district ; so 

 distinctly marked were the characters of each." 



Branch mines have led to the discovery of many valuable vein 

 mines, for when they worked until the gold seemed to fail, they 



