AGE OF AUKIFEROUS VEINS. 
163 
been informed that in two or three instances the lode has not 
deteriorated after it has left the slate and entered the granite. 
The question, however, it appears to me, is not yet satislactorilv 
settled. 
Of the age of this slate I have as yet been unable to form an 
opinion. In certain localities its character favors the view 
that it is a sedimentary rock. But so far as I can speak from 
observation, it is not fossiliferous, and it is doubtful whether it 
contains rounded pebbles. The only slate rocks which resem¬ 
ble it are situated above the quartz rock of the Taconic system. 
AGE OF THE AURIFEROUS VEINS OF NORTH CAROLINA. 
§ 99. The idea which has gained a few supporters, that gold 
is of recent origin, does not seem to be sustained by facts. 
President Hitchcock,* for example, quotes approvingly the 
opinion of Sir R. A. Murchison, that gold is of a recent origin; 
as late, for example, as the tertiaries. Opinions of geologists 
whose reputation is so widely spread should not be set aside 
for slight reasons. We find, notwithstanding the high authority 
to the contrary, that the permean rocks of North Carolina con¬ 
tain the debris of the auriferous quartz veins: the gold itself 
may be obtained from the quartz in the usual way. Whether 
the auriferous rocks of North Carolina and Virginia belong to 
the same period as those of Australia is not determined. But 
that the Carolina gold rocks and those of California belong to 
the same period, there is scarcely a doubt. An interesting fact 
connected with this subject should be stated in this place. In 
Burke county, North Carolina, E. Emmons, jr., discovered 
pottery and implements supposed to be of Indian manufacture, 
such as arrow heads, in the auriferous quartz grit seven feet 
below the surface. The grit is overlaid with a stiff clay. So 
the mammoth remains are found in Siberia in the same alluvia 
that contain gold.f-. These facts do not prove the recent origin 
* Geology of the Globe, p. 31. 
f Idem, p. 31. 
