40 CORUNDUM IN THE UNITED STATES. [bull. 1&). 
few that are worth $100 have been obtained from them. These smaller 
crystals are usually well developed and have a clean-cut form. The 
faces commonly developed on these are the base, c, 0001; the unit 
prism, m, lOH); the unit rhombohedron, r, 1011, and the pyramid, n,' 
2243, more rarely observed. 
The North Carolina locality for corundum gems which at the pres- 
ent time is attracting the most attention is the tract of land between 
the Caler Fork of Cowee Creek and Mason Branch, tributaries of the 
Little Tennessee River. 1 This tract is situated in Macon County, 
almost G miles below (north of) the town of Franklin. The nearest 
railroad station is Dillsboro, Jackson County, on the Southern Rail- 
way, about 12 miles to the east. The bottom of the valleys are about 
2,500 feet above sea level, and the mountain peaks or knobs in the 
immediate vicinity rise to a height of 3,000 or 3,500 feet. 
In the gravels of Caler Fork Valley pieces of crystals of red corun- 
dum were picked up b}^ the people of the district, which led to the 
driving of two or three tunnels with the expectation of striking the 
vein and finding the corundum in sufficient quantity for commercial 
purposes. Work in this direction was soon abandoned, and for a 
number of years there were only prospecting and a little mining for 
the red corundum for gem purposes. 
Systematic search was made, which revealed the fact that ruby 
corundum was to be found in the gravels of Caler Fork Valley for a 
distance of 3 miles. In 1895 the American Prospecting and Mining 
Company, of New York, bought out the old claims and began work on 
a systematic basis. The property owned by the company is a large 
tract on both sides of Caler Fork of Cowee Creek and nearly all the 
land in the northern part of the watershed of Mason Branch, a total 
area of about 5,000 acres. 
The gravels in which most of the rubies have been found are cov- 
ered by soil averaging about 2 feet in depth, but varying from 1 to 5, 
and they are about 3 feet higher than the present alluvial gravel of 
the stream. PI. II, A, is a view of one of the gravel beds that is 
being worked for rubies, just west of the company's office. The 
gravel in this part of the valley, which is overlain with 3 to 5 feet of 
soil, is composed of waterworn masses of quartz and small pebbles of 
gneiss and quartz, and is much cleaner in appearance than the gravels 
a mile farther up the creek, at In Situ Hill, where most of the mining 
was carried on during 1898. Fifty feet above the level of this gravel 
another bed was discovered at In Situ Hill which carried ruby 
corundum. 
In washing these gravels for the rubies, hydraulic processes have 
been used very similar to those used in the West in washing gold- 
bearing gravels. All the soil, as well as the gravel, is washed into a 
short line of sluice boxes (a of PL II, B) which lead into a large sieve 
Am. Jour. Sci., 4th series, Vol. VIII, 1899, p. :J70. 
