272 
GEOLOGY OF NORTH CAROLINA. 
the war; and as few of the mines which he described have been worked 
since, there is no need to go over the ground. To this remark there are 
a few exceptions. One of the mines of Guildford county, the old Gardi- 
ner Hill Mine, was re-opened and worked down below 300 feet. The ore 
was still very line copper pyrites, and the vein is reported as holding out 
well, but for some reason, the working has been abandoned. The Em- 
mons’ Mine aleo, more recently called the Davidson Mine, was re-opened 
and worked for several years by a Baltimore company, but has been 
abandoned for several years, no doubt because it did not pay. This vein 
is on the same line with Gold Hill, in the argillaceous and chloritic and 
talcoid slates of the western border of the great central Huronian belt. 
It was worked down to a considerable depth and very complete works for 
the concentration of the ore were erected, and much ore shipped to Balti- 
more. But for two or three years they have been idle. 
The Clegg Mine also, in Chatham, was re-opened since the war by a 
northern company and extensive works were erected, and the vein fol- 
lowed down to 200 feet, but everything has been abandoned for some 
reason, for these two years. 
The vein is quartz, with copper pyrites in talco-argillaceous and talco- 
quartzitic slates. Much of the veinstone, in depth, is a talco-siliceous and 
argillaceous breccia, of a gray and bluish mottled appearance, together 
with a dark blue jaspery quartzitic rock. The vein is traceable for hun- 
dreds of yards through the forests by large outcrops of white quartz. 
The thickness of it in the workings was reported as ranging from three, 
or four to six feet. Calcspar, in hexagonal prisms, occurs in the vein, and 
also in curved plates, enclosing masses of bituminous coal. The mine has 
also furnished fine specimens of azurite. 
I had never an opportunity to explore any of these veins, while opera- 
tions were going on, although such opportunity was sought, and so I do 
not venture to give any detailed descriptions, which would be only at 
second hand. There are, however, several copper mines in the western 
section of the State, which although opened before the war, are not men- 
tioned by Emmons. The chief of these are in two ranges, one in Jack- 
son and Haywood counties, the other in Ashe and Alleghany. Those of 
the former I visited shortly after the war, when, of course, little was to be 
seen. The copper belt occupies the middle portion of Jackson county, 
from the headwaters of Tuckasege river northward to Scott’s creek and 
Savannah creek, a region which is characterized, geological^, by the 
prevalence of hornblende slates, and gneisses and syenytes. The princi- 
pal points where mining operations have been carried on are Waryhut, 
Cullowhee and Savannah, although work has been done and symptoms 
