300 
GEOLOGY OF NORTH CAROLINA. 
(rude crystals), of 30 or 50 pounds weight up to several hundred, and 
even a thousand occasionally. These are readily fissile into latninse of 
any desired thickness ; and sheets are sometimes found three feet in diame- 
ter and upwards, and will often cut 1G by 20 inches. The most common 
sizes however, are much smaller, ranging from 2 by 3 inches to 4 by 6, 
occasionally a little larger. Last September, I saw in one heap, about 
200 tons of rough mica, that had just been quarried from a pit near Ba- 
kersville. The mica nodules are accumulated along certain planes or 
ranges in a quartz, or felspar, or quartz felspar matrix. A large propor- 
tion of the mineral obtained is rejected, either on account of a want of 
transparency, or because it is gnarled, the plates being so interlocked as 
not to be separable. 
The largest business in this line has been carried on by Messrs. Heap and 
Clapp, near Bakersville, who have opened and operated several mines. 
Mr. Irby also has operated quite largely in the same neighborhood. Mr. 
D. G. Ray, however, was one of the earliest in the new enterprise. He 
opened an extensive and very profitable mine on the northern slope of 
the Black Mountain, within two miles of Burnsville. Other mines have 
been and are now operated in Haywood, on Richland Creek for example, 
and in Jackson and Macon at several points. In Ashe county also are a 
number of mines, near Jefferson. Wilkes county on this side of the Blue 
Ridge, and Burke, Cleaveland and Catawba have entered to some extent 
into the mica-getting business. And if the market were sufficient, a large 
number of other counties could contribute to its supply. I be’ieve there 
are no larger sheets obtained anywhere, not even in Siberia, than in the 
mountains of this state, and no finer qualities; and probably nowhere has 
the business received so great a development. The largest and finest 
sheets seen at Vienna, were from the Ray Mine, Yancey county. 
There is a point of great interest connected with the history of mica- 
mining in this State, which it is worth while to refer to in this connection. 
This industry is not really new here, it is only revived. The present 
shafts and tunnels are continually cutting into ancient shafts and tunnels; 
and hundreds of spurs and ridges of the mountains, all over Mitchell 
county (especially), are found to be honey-combed with ancient workings 
of great extent, of which no one knows the date or history. In 1SG8 my 
attention was first called to the existence of old “ mine holes,” as they are 
called, in the region. Being invited to visit some old /Spanish silver mines 
a few miles southwest of Bakersville, I found, as stated in the report for 
1S68, a dozen or more “ open pits forty to fifty feet wide, by seventy-five 
to one hundred long, filled up to fifteen or twenty feet of depth, disposed 
along the sloping crest of a long terminal ridge or spur of a neighboring 
