16 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF ALABAMA 



conditioned, is capable, under merely a reasonable and 

 fair temporary measure of tariff protection, of mining 

 and of shipping mica to the value of five million dollars 

 annually. 



Ten states furnished the production reported for 1918, 

 being in the relative order of the sheet mica recovered, 

 North Carolina, New Hampshire, Georgia, Virginia, 

 South Dakota, Alabama, Colorado, South Carolina, New 

 Mexico and Wyoming. North Carolina, as always here- 

 tofore, furnished more than half of the recovered pro- 

 duct, both in respect to amount and value; New Hamp- 

 shire approximately one-fifth; Georgia about one-tenth. 

 Precise figures of production during 1919 and 1920, are 

 not as yet available. Of the states named, and from such 

 data as has been obtainable, it seems indicated however, 

 that North Carolina and New Hampshire have about 

 maintained their annual average, Georgia under war 

 stimulus, having shown a marked and surprising increase, 

 notably in the Thomaston district. It has been recently 

 stated by Mr. Courtenay DeKalb and others familiar with 

 recent Georgia developments that its record-breaking 

 war period increase in output can be maintained, and 

 that it is capable of being made one of the largest of 

 the mica producing states. Virginia, in 1918, practically 

 doubled its 1917 production. Alabama's output showed 

 a decline, and South Dakota, South Carolina, and Idaho, 

 no appreciable production, as was the case also with Colo- 

 rado and Wyoming. 



Among the minor producing states, a possibly import- 

 ant increase in production, having some distinct possibili- 

 ties, is reported during 1920 from New Mexico, where in 

 the Petaco District the El Paso Mining Company, oper- 

 ating mines in Rio Arriba County, developed a pegmatite 

 body, (stated to be unusually wide and persistently mi- 

 caized) by some 1,000 feet of drifts, recovering there- 

 from mica of fair sizes and of good quality in amounts 

 not stated, as the output of the mines has been altogether 

 manufactured into specialties by the operating company. 

 Outside of the ten producing states from which recognized 

 production has heretofore been drawn, mica occurrences, 

 undeveloped, and therefore of no present known import- 



