GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANI A, 



299 



mne requiring more mature judgment and profound 

 scientific information, none more exciting, or by which 

 we may be more easily led astray, than the arts of min- 

 ing and metallurgy. Few opportunities are olFered to the 

 public at large for acquiring this kind of information, and 

 few nations have adequately valued their mineral wealth, 

 or have placed these great primitive and delicate re- 

 sources under proper auspices. We have thus cursorily 

 endeavoured to enumerate some of the leading causes 

 which have conspired against successful attempts at 

 mining in this country. 



In the Carolinas and farther south, much gold was pro- 

 cured by washing alluvial deposits on small rivers, 

 streams or creeks, and subsequently from veins, ere 

 public attention was finally directed to the existence of 

 similar formations in the state of Virginia. Within a few 

 years many companies have been organized, and charters 

 obtained for working deposit and vein mines: with but 

 few exceptions the mining operations here have been 

 carried on by persons totally ignorant of the art^ conse- 

 quently without order or economy. Landholders and 

 others have been more successful in washing and sepa- 

 rating the gold from alluvial deposits by the use of mer- 

 cury. Some of these deposits are found to be prodi- 

 giously rich. A certain locality yielded to the amount of 

 1700 dollars from one single bucket of ore. This is an 

 extraordinary example, and by no means an average ex- 

 pression of the richness of the entire mine. 



GEOLOGY. 



Our section embraces the country, included between 

 Fredericksburg on the Rappahannock, and Winchester, 

 in the great valley of the Shenandoah, a distance of from 

 70 to 80 miles. The transition or blue limestone disap- 

 pears under the last mentioned stream, which forms a 

 line of separation between the transilion and evidently 



