58 MINERAL RESOURCES OP ALABAMA. 



for several years these ores were hauled in wagons to Carrollton, 

 Ga., and shipped thence to Baltimore for smelting. With the 

 partial exhaustion of these surface ores smelters were erected 

 at the mines, and from 1876 to 1879 the shipments from the 

 mine were in the shape of ingots of copper. From 1879 to 1896 

 work was suspended; but in the last named year a new com- 

 pany was organized, "The Copper Hill Mining Company," the 

 old mines were pumped out, a new house was erected over the 

 slope, new machinery put in, and the mining was resumed, and 

 a large amount of ore was brought out and stored around the 

 opening, where most of it still remains, for no smelters were 

 erected, and for want of railroad facilities the ore could not be 

 profitably shipped. The new workings showed the ore body 

 at a depth of 80 feet and below to be some 24 feet thick between 

 walls of igneous rock of the general nature of diorite. Analy- 

 ses show that the ore is richest near the two walls and that some 

 ten feet of the ore will average 7 per cent, of copper, while the 

 entire ore body will average probably 3 per cent. 



Comparatively little mining has been carried on at the Smith 

 mine. 



Graphite. 



This substance is very generally distributed among the meta- 

 morphic or crystalline recks, and it occurs in two modes. In 

 the feebly crystalline schists or slates which we have called the 

 Talladega, and which in part, at least are paleozoic sediments, 

 of as late age as the Coal Measures, the graphite is very often 

 found as a sort of black graphitic clay free from grit and is fre- 

 quently used as a lubricant. In this condition the graphite is 

 very difficult to separate from the other matters with which it 

 is mixed. Examples of this mode of occurrence aire to be seen 

 near Millerville, in Clay county, and about Blue Hill and Greg- 

 ory Hill, in Tallapoosa. 



In the mica schists and other fully crystalline rocks of this 

 region the graphite is present in the form of thin flakes, or 

 lamellae j and is comparatively easy to separate from the enclos- 

 ing rock. This variety of graphite has been worked at several 

 points in Clay, Coosa, and Chilton counties. 



Some of the graphitic schists hold as much as 20 per cent, of 

 graphite, but the average content is less. The belt of graphitic 



