gkaton.J  THE   CAROLINA  TIN   BELT.  193 
DEVELOPMENT  AND  ECONOMIC  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  DEPOSITS. 
Prospecting  in  the  Carolina  tin  belt  has  been  carried  on  more  or 
less  continuously  since  the  discovery  of  tin  in  the  early  eighties. 
Development  has  naturally  been  more  energetically  pursued  since 
the  opening  of  a  shipping  property.  Recent  work  has  been  done 
largely  by  Mr.  Ross,  of  Gaffney,  who  owns  the  Ross  mine,  and  by 
the  Carolinas  Tin  and  Development  Company,  of  Gaffney.  This 
company  controls  the  Faries  mine,  south  of  Kings  Mountain,  and 
recently  sold  the  Jones  mine,  7  miles  north  of  Kings  Mountain,  to  the 
Carolina  Tin  Company,  of  Charlottesville,  Va.  The  American  Sheet 
and  Tin  Plate  Company  did  considerable  prospecting  in  the  summer 
of  1904,  and  Messrs.  Carpenter  and  Rudisill,  of  Kings  Mountain, 
N.  C,  have  explored  rather  extensively  from  Kings  Mountain  north- 
ward into  Lincoln  County,  N.  C. 
The  pegmatite  belt  continues  soutliAvestward  from  Gaffney,  and 
northeastward  from  the  center  of  Lincoln  County,  but  beyond  these 
points  no  authenticated  discoveries  of  tin  have  been  reported. 
Boss  mme. — The  ore  body  of  the  Ross  mine  occurs  in  very  much 
decomposed  material,  which  is  probably  amphibolite.  The  mine  is 
opened  by  a  shaft  75  feet  deep,  from  the  bottom  of  which  a  short 
crosscut  intersects  the  dike.  A  drift  about  25  feet  in  each  direction 
from  the  crosscut,  and  a  50-foot  incline  from  the  surface,  follow  the 
ore  shoot.  Seventy-five  thousand  pounds  of  cassiterite,  which  include 
a  considerable  amount  of  float  ore  gathered  from  the  surface,  have 
already  been  shipped. 
Faries  mine. — This  property  has  a  number  of  pegmatite  dikes,  of 
which  one  shows  at  the  surface  a  fairly  rich  bunch  of  ore.  A  shaft 
near  this  outcrop  is  40  feet  deep  and  has  about  200  feet  of  crosscuts 
and  drifts  at  its  bottom.  These  developments  expose  two  converging 
pegmatite  dikes,  but  the  ore  shoot  seen  on  the  surface  has  not  been 
encountered  and  work  is  now  suspended. 
Jones  mine. — Two  pegmatite  dikes  carrying  tin  occur  in  amphibo- 
lite on  this  property.  One  is  parallel  to  the  foliation  of  the  country 
rock  and  dips  northwest,  but  the  other  is  approximately  vertical  and 
crosses  the  strike  of  the  amphibolite  at  a  large  angle.  A  shaft  175 
feet  deep  has  been  sunk  on  the  vertical  dike,  and  drifts  have  been  run 
in  both  directions  at  depths  of  50  and  100  feet,  and  shaft  and  drifts 
^re  all  in  ore.  At  the  150-foot  level  a  short  crosscut  to  the  south 
encounters  some  narrow  streaks  of  tin-bearing  pegmatite  parallel  to 
the  main  dike,  but  of  too  low  grade  to  be  profitable.  A  concentrating 
[mill  has  been  erected  and  nearly  a  carload  of  cassiterite  is  ready  for 
shipment. 
Bull.  2G0   -05  m 13 
