HAILE GOLD MINE. 
79 
ance present. On the 60-foot level of the No. 5 shaft the same rock is seen in an unoxidized 
state. It is light gray in color, fairly soft, and exceedingly well bedded, so that thin layers 
3an be separated from it. Under the microscope it is found to be somewhat silicified and 
pyritized. Remains of original bedding are easily recognizable in very siliceous ore from 
certain parts of the Haile and Beguelin cuts. 
This tuft' is composed of fragments of almost microscopic size. The assortment is nice, 
larger grains of quartz, feldspar, or mica being only rarely present, and it is in consequence 
natural to conclude that these are water-laid deposits. In this place in the No. 5 shaft 
some masses have almost entirely escaped shearing and the banding is perfect. From this 
extreme can be traced every gradation, through areas showing a slight disturbance of the 
bands and those in which remains of the banding is barely visible to dense rock with marked 
Bssility or foliation and no indication of original bedding. In all places where bedding has 
been observed the foliation due to subsequent movement has been in general parallel to the 
original bedding planes. Minor local exceptions occur, the schistosity being oblique to the 
bedding. In several such instances the rock has a decided foliation across the bedding and 
pet the movement which produced this foliation was of so slight an amplitude that it requires 
a second look to be sure that the beds are faulted at all. Foliation or fissility is as well pre- 
served in some of the silicified ore as in the less altered schist, but in general the soft sericitic 
rocks possess much more decided schistosity than the dense siliceous ores. 
Of the few feldspar fragments which can be identified with certainty, no further classifica- 
tion can be made. Alteration has in most cases changed the feldspar fragments into sericite. 
When the rock has been foliated this fibrous mica gives a silvery luster to the cleavage sur- 
faces and has led to the application of the name talc schists to these rocks. As a matter of 
fact, these rocks do not contain talc, as has been pointed out by Nitze,« who cites the follow- 
ing analyses by Baskerville: 
Analyses of quartz-sericite schist from the Haile mine. 
1. 
2. 
1. 
2. 
3i0 2 
44. 61 
31.57 
3.55 
.20 
.22 
.16 
61.02 
25.54 
4.46 
.60 
.14 
Na 2 
6.96 
6.97 
5.80 
2.19 
AI2O3 
K 2 
1.81 
FeO 
IhO 
4.20 
:ao 
100. 04 
MgO 
99.96 
MnO 
The difference in these two analyses is probably not to be attributed to initial dissimilarity 
of the rocks, but rather to the fact that the fairly unaltered sericite schist, represented by 
analysis No. 1, has been silicified to the extent shown by No. 2. This silicification, which 
can be well represented by specimens and thus studied under the microscope, proves gener- 
ally to correspond in intensity with the amount of foliation, although in the case of extreme 
silicification traces of former structure have been quite destroyed and the rock is simply a 
massive, siliceous " hornstone." Pyrite is a common constituent of all these phases of rock 
and in a general way corresponds in amount with the degree of silicification. This conclu- 
sion is reached only after microscopic study, for in the soft, less siliceous schists the pyrite 
occurs in crystals of a size readily detected by the eye, while in the hard silicified rocks it is 
present in abundance, but in such exceedingly minute crystals that they appear small even 
[mder a high power. These schists strike N. 40° to 60° E. and dip from 45° to 80° NW. 
gee PI. V.) 
Massive granite, similar to that in the tin belt farther west, is exposed about 2 miles 
lortheast of the mine and may occur, covered by soil and sands, at a considerably less 
listance. 
a Bull. North Carolina Geol. Survey No. 3, 1896, p. 34. 
