DESCRIPTIONS OF MINES. 125 
open spaces of moderate size. Briefly, I am convinced that the mode of origin of the Dahlo- 
nega deposits was entirely similar to that of other auriferous quartz veins of Calif ornian 
and Australian type, although, owing to physical causes, some features of their develop- 
ment differed. In all three cases it seems a probable hypothesis that the gold was contained 
in the granitic magma and that it was separated from it during the cooling process and car- 
ried to the veins in the form of solutions in magmatic water. 
The study of the mode of alteration of wall rocks in different mines affords some basis 
for the suggestion that there may have been two epochs of vein formation in. which the 
physical condition during deposition differed in a decided manner. 
The abundance of intergrown pyrrhotite and chalcopyrite in some of the amphibolites of 
Dahlonega brings to mind the occurrence of deposits of such minerals at other places in the 
South — Ducktown, for example . In the present case these sulphides have every appearance 
of having been formed by the same metamorphic processes which made an amphibolite out 
of a diabase or diorite, and, if this is true, the chalcopyrite merely represents the concen- 
tration by aqueous agencies of the copper distributed through the rock. 
DESCRIPTIONS OF MINES. 
PREACHER CUT. 
The pit known as the Preacher Cut, made by hydraulic work, is situated half a mile south 
of Dahlonega. Amphibolites, striking northeastward, prevail between this mine and the 
town, but near the cut mica schist is the country rock and strikes northwesterly, dipping 
to the northeast or southwest at angles of from 35° to 65°. This cut is about 800 feet long, 
extending in a southwesterly direction, 200 feet wide, and about 60 feet deep. The central 
part is occupied by a well-defined dike of amphibolite about 60 feet wide and gradually 
tapering toward the southwest. At the lower end of the cut, nearest to the town, the con- 
tacts of the amphibolite and mica schist are sharply defined and about perpendicular. The 
amphibolite is fairly fresh in the bottom of the cut, but elsewhere red and softened. The 
schistosity of the mica schists continues in imperfect development across the dike. Along 
both sides of the dike the schists contain numerous thin stringers of solid quartz dipping 
with the schistosity, there are also a few veinlets along the contact. The gold occurs to 
some extent in the veinlets with schist, but chiefly in the schist surrounding these stringers 
along both sides of the amphibolite dike. There is very little gold in the amphibolite. 
The schists and the quartz stringers near the contact are in places contorted and corrugated. 
Garnet occurs at this locality, probably associated with the quartz, but the specimens were 
too decomposed to ascertain this definitely. A northwestward-trending dislocation crosses 
the upper part of the cut. In this break or fault are several narrow quartz veinlets with 
fine comb structure; native gold is said to occur in these. 
The peculiar feature in this mine is that the gold-bearing zone extends along both sides 
of the amphibolite dike in a direction perpendicular to that of the schistosity and of the 
auriferous veinlets. In the bottom of the cut the rocks are hard and the hydraulic process 
scarcely feasible, while the average values are said to be low. 
CONSOLIDATED MINES. 
Half a mile east-northeast of Dahlonega on the road to Yahoola River are the extensive 
hydraulic cuts of the old Hand properties, now owned by the Dahlonega Consolidated 
Gold Mining Company. Some years ago a large shaft was sunk here, near the bottom of 
these cuts, and a 120-stamp mill built, with a 30-ton chlorinat ion plant and 48 Frue van- 
ners, with the idea of mining the stringer zone on a large scale. Probably the grade proved 
rather low. At the present time 30 stamps are dropping. 
The country rock in the Hand cuts and in the tunnels of the Dahlonega Consolidated 
Gold Mining Company below them is a garnetiferous mica schist, contorted in places and 
containing many dikes of a white, somewhat aplitic granite up to 1 or 2 feet wide, which 
