288 
GEOLOGY OF NORTH CAROLINA. 
quartz veins, whilst the large veins are mostly barren. In a region which 
contains many small veins, the gravel deposits are generally valuable, even 
if the bulk of the beds has been made up from the destruction of large ones. 
There are several highly important gravel deposits in Montgomery 
county, in the slate formation, some of which have produced a large 
amount of gold ; the gold is mostly crystalline, in flat pieces, often covered 
with octahedral crystals, and in large nuggets; very little fine-grained 
gold has been found. 
The best known deposit, which has produced large returns, but which 
is still, so to say, barely touched, is the so called Christian mine. 
The Swift Creek mine, about seven miles distant, produces gold of sim- 
ilar appearance. 
West of the Blue Ridge several gravel deposits have been worked, to a 
greater or lesser extent, in Cherokee and Jackson counties, also at How- 
ard’s Creek, in Watauga, and on the French Broad and Hew Rivers. 
Throughout the whole gold region, every stream, branch and rivulet 
contains gold; and, as the washing of these is the most convenient way 
to obtain the precious metal on a small scale, there is hardly one which is 
not more or less worked, many of them up to their source,” 
Platinum. 
“Only a few grains have been found in IS’orth Carolina, associated' with 
gold in Rutherford and Burke counties ; and there is no prospect that it 
ever will be found in large quantities.” 
Silver, Lead, Zinc. 
“ I shall consider those three metals under one head, as they are always 
associated. 
Silver is a rare metal in North Carolina. With the exception of the 
silver alloyed with gold, varying from 1 or 2 to about 20 per cent., in 
the gold from veins and gravel deposits of the granitic and gneissoid rocks, 
verv little silver has been found in the veins of these strata. 
The only localities which came under my notice were at the Baker 
mine, in Caldwell, and at Scott’s Hill, in Burke county. There it occurs 
but rarely, in veins of auriferous quartz. At the latter place it is only 
observed after burning the ore, and a little fragment which 1 have seen 
makes me feel confident that it is present as cerargyite, or chloride of 
silver. 
Small quantities of argentiferous galenite and pyromorphitc are asso- 
ciated with it. 
