THE GOLD DEPOSITS OF DAHLONEGA, GA, 
By Waldemar Lindgren 
INTRODUCTION. 
The gold mines of the Southern States, especially of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Alabama, 
have during the last decades declined in importance, and they have also been eclipsed by 
the larger production due to successive discoveries in the Western States. In consequence 
of this they have not in recent years obtained their share of attention from geologists. 
But it must not be forgotten that they were the first gold deposits which were studied b} 7 
American geologists, and that about forty to sixty years ago they received much attention 
by such men as Silliman, Rogers, Whitney, E. Emmons, Lieber, and Kerr. The results 
of their studies were naturally applied to such western discoveries as the California gold- 
quartz veins, and thus the conceptions of "lenticular masses" and "segregated veins" 
were improperly transferred to western occurrences. No doubt the southern gold veins 
and those of California present some striking features of similarity, but the profound differ- 
ences were overlooked, and the correct view of the latter as sharply defined fissure veins 
has only lately found acceptance in the general literature of ore deposits. 
The first modern geological investigation of the southern gold deposits was made by 
Dr. G. F. Becker in 1895," and his results throw much light on their mode of formation and 
aid in their proper classification. Since then detailed descriptions of many mines have been 
published by the State geologists of North Carolina and Georgia. When Mr. L. C. Graton was 
detailed to the investigation which forms the subject of this report, namely, the examination 
of the gold and tin deposits of the central portion of the Carolinas, it was my hope that, 
besides the practical results, some data on which to base conclusions as to origin might be 
gained, and a perusal of the bulletin will show that this hope was justified. After visiting 
some of the principal occurrences in the region under investigation, Mr. Graton and myself 
made a brief trip to Dahlonega for the purpose of comparing these veins with those farther 
north. The notes obtained, as well as some general conclusions, will be found in the follow- 
ing paragraphs, and, though very incomplete, may serve to fix a little more sharply than 
has been done before the group in which these deposits belong and some of their more 
striking distinctions compared with the gold deposits of the Cordilleran region. 
GENERAL GEOLOGY. 
The mines of the Dahlonega district of Lumpkin County, Ga., have been described in 
more or less detail in several publications. Among them should be mentioned the "Recon- 
naissance of the gold fields of the Southern Appalachians," by Dr. G. F. Becker,^ and "The 
present condition of gold mining in the Southern Appalachian States," c by Messrs. Nitze 
and Wilkens. Besides these, Dr. W. S. Yeates published, in 1896, as State geologist of 
the Georgia Geological Survey, "A preliminary report on a part of the gold deposits of 
a Gold fields of the Southern Appalachians: Sixteenth Ann. Rept. U. S. Geol. Survey, pt. 3, 1895, 
pp. 251-331. 
b Sixteenth Ann. Rept U. S. Geol. Survey, pt. 3, 1895, pp. 251-331. 
cTrans. Am. Inst. Min. Eng., vol. 25, 1896, pp. 661-796, 1021, 1025. 
119 
