232 THE FORESTS OF NORTH CAROLINA. 



cedar (scarce), buckeye, black gum, slippery elm, 

 beech, iron-wood, wild plum, sassafras, chinquapin, 

 crab-apple. Of these timbers, the oaks are more 

 generally distributed through our forests than any 

 other; then chestnut, the hickory and poplar, etc. 

 I have not the means at command to determine the 

 percentage of uncleared forest as compared with the 

 lands cleared and in cultivation, but I am inclined 

 to believe that five-sixths of the whole area of the 

 county are in unbroken forests. The oaks prevail 

 throughout the whole territory of the county. Clay, 

 Cherokee, Graham, Swain, Jackson, and Haywood 

 produce similar growths ; and to the list herein given 

 you may add balsam for the counties of Swain, Jack- 

 son, and Haywood. — C. D. S. 



Hayesville, Clay County, May 8, 1882. — Five 

 counties in the extreme western corner of North 

 Carolina have since the Atlanta Exposition become 

 centres of attraction to geologists, to metallurgists, 

 and to all who have either a scientific or a practical 

 knowledge of mines and mining. These are Swain, 

 with its beautiful marbles of many colors ; Graham, 

 abounding in free gold precipitated next the soft 

 slate ; Cherokee, with its belts of iron, limestone, 

 marble, and steatite, and its mines of gold, lead, 

 silver, and mineral paint. The remaining two are 

 Clay, in which gold, corundum, mica, asbestos, soap- 

 stone, and many gems are found ; and Macon, with 

 its ores of copper and its mines of corundum, mica, 

 asbestos, graphite, limestone, and a large variety of 



