140 GEOLOGY OP NORTH CAROLINA. 
quality. 2. That of Lincoln, where the ore is of the same kind, 
abundant, and good, and the quantity of the iron manufactured 
much greater. There are in Lincoln four furnaces, which are in 
blast during more than half the year, and about twelve forges. 
The Lincoln iron is also good, but is said to possess the quality 
of toughness, in greater perfection than that of hardness. Though 
some iron has been made in Wilkes, Burke, and Rutherford, the 
ore beds of those counties are of less importance. 3. The third 
principal body of iron ore is on the. other side of the ridge, in 
the counties of Ashe and Yancey — in the extreme north-western 
part of the latter county. Much of it is in rocks containing 
hornblende as one of their ingredients, and the metal obtained 
from it is excellent, being both tough and hard, and eminently 
fitted therefore for most of the uses to which iron is applied. 
Gold has been found in small quantities in most of the western 
counties, but in the most ancient primitive, it is collected from 
surface mines. Minute veins and small pockets holding grains of 
the precious metal imbedded, are distributed through these rocks, 
and as disintegration has proceeded, the gold has been carried by 
water down the declivities, into the beds of the neighbouring 
streams. The counties of Rutherford and Burke, have hitherto 
been found richer in these deposits than any other. 
Limestone has been discovered at three points in the primitive 
rocks in Stokes county ; at one on the bank of the Yadkin, three 
miles below Rockford in Surrey, and at several places in the south- 
eastern part of Buncomb and Henderson. Small nodules and 
masses also have been found about Lincolnton, encouraging a far- 
ther search, in the hope that larger bodies may be discovered. 
The limestone of King's Mountain is in a small tract of later 
primitive, bearing an intimate resemblance to the country around 
Charlotte, and like that rich in veins of gold. 
Plumbago, or black lead, is found at several places in Stokes, 
Surrey, Wilkes, Burke. Iredell, and Lincoln. Sometimes it is 
in considerable masses, sometimes in smaller masses or grains, 
distributed through the rocks, and again it is diffused through the 
whole of a bed of mica slate, communicating to it, its own dark 
colour. Beds of serpentine are common beyond the ridge. Be- 
sides asbestus, chalcedony, and other earthy minerals, some of 
them contain an immense number of small octahedral crystals of 
the magnetic oxide of iron, and one on the south fork of Toe 
river, is highly charged with irregular grains of the chromate of 
iron. There is a whole hill of amianthus in the northern part of 
Yancey. 
Springs whose waters hold dissolved a small amount of mine- 
ral matter, chalybeates and others, are not uncommon ; but there 
are few which are so strongly impregnated as to be worthy of 
particular notice. In some cases, rising near the bottom of a 
declivity, they ooze through a mass of vegetable and some ani- 
mal matter that has been washed down from above, and the 
