ECONOMICAL GEOLOGY. 
299 
CORUN DOM, 
Attention has been called in another connection to the emery beds asso- 
ciated with the Guildford range of iron ores ; and an analysis by Genth 
was given. But the region to which attention has been of late largely 
drawn as a source of emery, or corundum proper, lies west of the Blue 
Ridge ; and as elsewhere pointed out, it is there associated with the chry- 
solite beds throughout the whole of their extent, so far as any examina- 
tion has been made. The richest localities however, thus far discovered, 
are found in Macon county, near Franklin, and in Clay county on Buck 
Creek. For a fuller account of these localities, see the paper of Mr. 
Smith in the appendix. This gentleman also calls attention to other 
localities in this range, and Dr. Genth has published an elaborate paper 
on the associated minerals of the whole series of chrysolyte beds ; Prof. 
Shepard also, and Dr. J. Lawrence Smith have published interesting in- 
vestigations on the same subject. There are in the Museum specimens 
from several other places, one in the southern extremity of Jackson 
county, south of the Blue Budge, another on Ivy River in Madison 
county, where I procured very handsome specimens in 186T, and a third 
1-J miles from Bakersville, within 200 yards of the asbestos above de- 
scribed, at which point, in company with Mr. Irby, I found several spec- 
imens last fall. There are also hexagonal crystals of corundum in the 
Museum, from Crowder’s Mountain in Gaston county, and some large 
sized ones from Forsythe. A friend has lately written me from Iredell, 
that he has some crystals found in that section. So that it is evidently a 
mineral of very wide distribution in the state. 
MICA. 
The mining of this mineral is a comparatively new industry in North 
Carolina, having been inaugurated only A or 5 years ago. And it is still 
chiefly limited to some half a dozen counties, mostly beyond the Blue 
Ridge. The marketable mica is obtained from the great ledges (veins?) 
of very coarse granite, elsewhere described, which characterize the middle 
region of the mountain plateau, a little southeastward of, and parallel to 
the great hornblendic and chrysolytic ranges described in a previous chap- 
ter. The most noted localities are in Mitchell and Yancey, on tlie waters 
of the Nolechucky, between the Black Mountain and the Roan. In this 
basin are a great many enormous ledges of the granite above referred to, 
and scores of mines have been opened within a few years, some of which 
have proved very profitable. The mineral is taken out in large lumps 
