MICA. 59 



rocks extends from Chilton county northeastward into Georgia. 

 In Tallapoosa county a mile below Tallassee there is a third 

 mode of occurrence, or perhaps a modification of the second 

 above described. Here a belt of garnetiferous schist crosses 

 the river in an outcrop of about 100 yards width. In this schist 

 the graphite is found in lenses or flakes which sometimes attain 

 a diameter of two inches. As the rock disintegrates the graph- 

 ite lenses weather out and are scattered loose over the surface. 

 The same belt or a similar one is to be seen where it crosses 

 Wolf Creek in the northern portion of Macon county. 



Mica. 



While mica has not been sent from Alabama to the market in 

 anything more than experimental way, yet there is much reason 

 for thinking that a good merchantable article can be obtained at 

 a number of points in Chilton, Coosa, Clay, and Randolph 

 counties. In a belt of mica schists extending through these 

 counties, there are frequent veins of a coarse grained granite or 

 pegmatite, in which the constituent minerals, quartz, feldspar, 

 and mica, are segregated in large masses. The feldspar is very 

 generally weathered into kaolin, and it is from these occurrences 

 that we get all the true or vein kaolin. The mica in its turn is 

 present in the form generally of large rough masses or bould- 

 ers, from which it may be split out in sheets of varying size. 

 In all this belt there are ancient pits or mines in which trees 

 are now growing with diameter of 18 inches. 



Around the mouths of these old diggings are great piles of 

 broken-tip refuse mica, apparently showing that a large amount 

 of the mineral had been taken from them. In North Carolina, 

 and probably elsewhere, the old mines of this kind have often 

 proven to be the best places for obtaining good mica in mod- 

 ern times, and this fact may serve as a hint to those who con- 

 template mica mining in this state. 



Most work in getting mica has probably been done near 

 Micaville, in Cleburne county, and at the Pinetucky mine, in 

 Randolph. Many tons of mica, some of it in large sheets six 

 to ten inches in size, have been gotten up and stored away in 

 a house, which was destroyed by fire and the mica injured, so 

 that it was never sent to market. None of the localities is near 



