58 Scientific Intelligence. 



amount of the metal has been obtained in the Chaudiere district 

 at the northern end of the Green mountains. In the South a 

 belt of gold-bearing country passes through Virginia from the 

 neighborhood of Washington, a second more important belt 

 stretches through North Carolina past Charlotte into South 

 Carolina; an auriferous area occurs in the heart of North Carolina 

 at the South mountains, and still another belt crosses northern 

 Georgia extending into Alabama. Field studies were made only 

 of the deposits in Georgia and the Carolinas. 



The first discovery of gold in the South seems to have been due 

 to Ponce de Leon in 1513 and some curious notes on the early 

 reports are set down. The first discovery which drew the atten- 

 tion of the present population to the gold resources was at the 

 Reed mine, North Carolina, in 1799 and no " gold fever " occurred 

 until 1830. The total production of the South up to the end of 

 last year is estimated by the Mint authorities at above 45 million 

 dollars. This does not represent a very large annual yield, but 

 then it also represents only a small annual effort. In the palmy 

 days of the Comstock about 10 miles of galleries were driven 

 each year. It is doubtful whether all the galleries run during the 

 century in the southern gold mines would aggregate 10 miles. 



The rocks of the Georgian belt are mainly gneisses and gneis- 

 soid schists, believed by the geologists of the survey to be 

 Archaean from evidence occurring farther westward. They are 

 intersected by granite dikes supposed to be Algonkian. In the 

 South mountain area the rocks are similar to those in Georgia. In 

 the Carolinian belt granite is not absent, but the main mass of 

 the country is composed of metamorphosed sedimentaries and 

 volcanics. These last belong to the series studied by the late 

 George H. Williams and with the sedimentaries are supposed to be 

 Algonkian. To the northward the continuation of the volcanics 

 is known to be pre-Cambrian. 



All the rocks associated with gold in place have been subjected 

 to profound dynamical action excepting a portion of the dikes. 

 Almost all the country has acquired slaty cleavage, which strikes 

 in a direction about parallel with the general trend of the Appala- 

 chians. In some areas the dip is westerly and in some easterly. 

 It is suggested that these two groups of cleavages do not indicate 

 forces of different directions but may be the conjugate cleavages 

 due to a force of nearly constant direction as indicated in the 

 author's theory of slate.* 



Subsequent to the genesis of the cleavage a wide spread disloca- 

 tion took place under the action of forces not coinciding in direction 

 with that to which the cleavage is due. This fresh disturbance 

 opened the fissures noAV occupied by quartz, and the direction of 

 faulting, in all instances observed, was normal. In a large pro- 

 portion of cases the effect was to split the rocks approximately 

 along their cleavage. In the South mountain area, however, the 

 strike of the schists is abnormal and the astonishingly regular 

 vein-fissures cut sharply across the cleavage. 



*Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., iv, 1893, pp. 13-90. 



