210 Remarks on the Gold Mines of North Carolina. 



place where they can most easily support themselves. They 

 labor only enough to get bread and whiskey, perhaps a few 

 hours in the day, or a few days in the week, and the remainder 

 of their time they idle away in lounging from camp to camp, 

 and in hanging about the whiskey carts, or huckster waggons, 

 of which there are always several on the ground, with cider, 

 spirits, provisions and other articles to sell. 



It may be asked why the owners of these mines do not 

 adopt a system, and carry on the business with more regular- 

 ity. That they should do this is very clear, but there are sev- 

 eral reasons why they do not : — 



First. The proprietors of the mines, as yet discovered, gen- 

 erally are persons not well informed on the advantages of a 

 different method. In the present way, without any expense on 

 their part they have a handsome income ; and they are un- 

 willing to forego these daily profits obtained in the old way, 

 for the chance of getting even more gold on any new plan. 

 Besides, they have but little confidence in any other method of 

 operating. They think the rocker the best and perhaps the 

 only way of getting the gold. In this opinion they are 

 strengthened, by the failure of several injudicious and unskil- 

 ful plans to wash the dirt, and separate the gold. The own- 

 ers of the lands therefore on which the deposits are found, are 

 the last persons that will expend money on any new plans, or 

 for the erection of any sort of machinery. 



Second. The owners of the richest mines, have heretofore, 

 been unwilling to rent their lands to enterprising individuals 

 on such terms as they could afford to take them. They are 

 accustomed to receiving the half or third of what is found on 

 their land, by means of the rocker, and it is difficult to make 

 them understand, that they ought to take one tenth or one 

 twelfth from those who would rent with the view of erecting 

 labor-saving machinery. This prevents the best mines from 

 passing into the hands of enterprising strangers, who might 

 introduce system and method. 



Third. The proprietor of a mine, much resorted to, does 

 in fact make more for a time, by permitting the same to be 

 worked in the old way, than he possibly could in the same 

 time by any new method. For example : at the Beaver- 

 dam mines, during a part of last summer, there were daily 

 about one hundred hands at work, and the income to the pro- 

 prietors was six or seven hundred pennyweights of gold per 

 Aveek. This was too large an income to be given up, for one de- 



