ECONOMICAL GEOLOGY. 
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of this and the neighboring counties, Moore, Randolph, &c., but the 
absence of capital is still too seriously felt to permit the development of 
so expensive an industry. 
In the South Mountains, however, a considerable amount of mining 
has been done, operations having been resumed in a multitude of gravel 
deposits of this region, where are found by far the most extensive placer 
diggings in the State. For a description of the character and origin of 
these deposits, see page 156. The area over which these are spread in 
the counties of Burke, McDowell and Rutherford, can hardly be less than 
200 square miles. The gold-bearing drift, or “ gravel ” is accumulated 
along the beds of the streams, on the benches and in all the various situ- 
ations which in California have given rise to the terms river , hill , bench, 
flat and gulch “ diggings." An immense quantity of gold has been ob- 
tained from the mines of this section since their opening about 1S29, 
probably between two and three millions of dollars. The most noted lo- 
calities, — the richest and most extensive beds of auriferous gravel lie on 
the head waters of Silver Creek, Muddy Creek and First Broad and 
Second Broad rivers, — Brindletown, Brackettown, Whiteside and Jeans- 
town. As much as ten dollars a day to the hand has often been made in 
the early workings of these deposits, and I am informed by some of the 
older citizens, that just before the California gold deposits began to attract 
attention, as many as 3000 hands might have been seen at work on one 
of the streams above named. 
There is still a large amount of gold in the beds which remain un- 
touched, as well as in those which have been rudely and carelessly worked 
over, some of them more than once. Indeed, some of the richest of 
these deposits have remained unworked on account of the difficulty of 
bringing a supply of water to their level, being situated considerably 
above the neighboring streams, or the higher slopes and benches of the 
foot hills of the mountains. In one of these cases, on the upper waters 
of Silver Creek, water has recently been brought from a distance of sev- 
eral miles, and an attack made upon some of these more elevated deposits ; 
and the result is that they are found to be very rich and the working 
highly remunerative. This enterprise has been inaugurated by Col. J. C. 
Mills, who owns a very large acreage of such detrital beds, some of them 
20 to 25 and even 30 feet deep. 
Vein mining has never been found profitable in this section ; in fact 
there are no veins of size discoverable. The gbld seems to have been 
contained in mere strings and thin sheets of quartz intercalated between 
the beds of decomposable mica schists and micaceous gneisses of the 
Archfean formation. And among the gravel beds are frequently found 
