2S6 
GEOLOGY OF NORTH CAROLINA. 
The width of these auriferous beds varies from a few inches to from 6’0* 
to 70 feet. 
The gold in them is often found without any ‘admixture, and the auri- 
ferous strata show no line of demarcation, and cannot be distinguished' 
from tiie barren layers ; but, generally, and subsequently to its deposi- 
tion, it has been acted upon by chemical agencies, dissolved and precipi- 
tated again, and has assumed a crystalline structure; it has accumulated 
in strings which sometimes form lenticular and more highly auriferous 
masses in the beds, and is associated with crystalline quartz, pyrite, ehal- 
copyrite, galenite, bleude, mispickel, etc. 
These are often parallel with the slates, and so close together that they 
can be worked by the same operation, especially where the slates between 
are also auriferous. 
To this class belong the mines at Gold Ilill, in Rowan County, which 
have already produced not less than $2,000,000, and have reached a 
depth of 750 feet. Although this appears to be a very large production, 
I do not hesitate to say that perhaps four-fifths of all the gold in the ore, 
which is a talco-micaeeous or chloritic slate, intermixed with pyrite, mag- 
netite, and a little quartz, has been lost in the tailings, on account of the 
very imperfect process used for the extraction of the same. 
The King’s Mountain Mine, of Gaston County, also belongs to this 
class. The gold is, to a great extent, contained in a quartzose limestone, 
and is associated with very small quantities of pyrite, galenite, chalco- 
pyrite, but also with the very rare tellurides of lead, altaite, and with 
nagyagite, a telluride of gold and lead. 
In gold mining operations, the deposits which result from the disinte- 
gration of the rocks, and subsequent denudation, are undoubtedly of the 
greatest importance ; there the gold which was contained in the rocks 
and in the small auriferous veins (which have been broken up into frag- 
ments) has been concentrated by nature, and in many places has been 
deposited, with the remnants of the veins, in the gravel beds which I 
have already mentioned. 
Those gravel beds occur to a greater or less extent throughout the 
whole gold region ; the oldest gneissoid rocks as well as the slate forma- 
tion contain them. 
The quartz in general is not water-worn, only the sharp edges are 
rounded. Many pieces still present the shape and thickness of the veins 
whence they came. 
The most extensive gravel deposits exist in the South Mountains, on 
the headwaters of the first and second Broad River, Muddy Creek and 
Silver Creek, in the counties of Rutherford, McDowell, Burke, Caldwell, 
