GOLD-MINES OF GEORGIA. 337 



year in which any gold from these two states was 

 received at the Mint. Thus nearly half of the tota 

 amount of gold coined in the year 1829 was of do- 

 mestic production. In the year 1830, $500,000 

 worth of gold was obtained in North Carolina by 

 employing a capital of $150,000. 



Previous to the year 1835, it was computed that 

 the loose gold procured from washing gravel had 

 yielded more than $6,000,000 of dollars, a great 

 proportion of which, however, was worked up in 

 jewellery, and not coined. These mines of Georgia 

 had at that time yielded more than $500,000 ; and 

 Mr. Taylor, an English practical geologist, who has 

 examined the gold districts, anticipates that the 

 gold deposites of the United States will soon yield 

 far larger returns than those of Brazil, Columbia, 

 and the Urals united. 



GOLD-MINES OF GEORGIA. 



Gold occurs in considerable abundance among 

 the beds of gravel in the primitive region of Geor- 

 gia, and also in veins in the same rock formation. 

 The rocks are gneiss, mica, and talcose slate, horn- 

 blende and granite, and the gravel-beds, containing 

 the ore which is at the bottom, are from one to four 

 feet in depth. Above this gravel there is a bed of 

 sand with scales of mica, varying from three to 

 twenty feet deep, on a bed of clay with angular 

 fragments of quartz, from one inch to five feet deep. 

 The fragments of rock forming this gravel have the 

 rolled appearance, which is produced by the action 

 of running water, and chemical agents, evidently 

 have resulted from the disintegration of the primi- 

 tive rocks in the adjacent mountains. 



The veins containing the gold traverse the ori- 

 ginal strata in various directions, but generally a 

 little to the east and west of north and south. The 

 veins are of quartz of different characters, varying 

 generally with the original rock in which it is 



