Blackstone National Boylston National .... Banks. Atlantic National Atlas National. Boston National (Old), Boston Nat. par 50.. Broadway National City (National) Columbian National. Commerce (Nat. Bank of).. Continental National.. Eagle (National) Eliot National.. Everett (National) Exchange (National) Faneuil Hall National. First National Freeman's National. Hide and Leather (Nat). N'th America (Nat. Bk.of). 2,000,000 4 4 500,000 4 5 1,000,000 4 4 4 1.000,000 4 42 5 200,000 New 1,000,000 5 5 5 1,0 0,000 5 5 5 1,000,000 5 5 400,000 4 1,000,000 4 750,000 8 6 0 1,000,000 4 4 1,000,000 4% 4 5 10 1,000,000 4 Shawmut National. 750,000 4 4 Shoe & Leather National. State Nationalt. Suffolk National Third National.. 1,000,000 5 6 Traders' National. 300,000 (new) 88 4 100 111 3 3 Tremont National 2,000,000 4 4% 4 1,000,000 10 4 4 Washington National. 750,000 4 4 Webster (National) 1,000,000 4 4 REPORT OF JAMES W. TAYLOR TO SECRETARY MCCULLOCH. (Continued from page 224.) The gold veins of Virginia extend through Fairfax, Prince William, Fauquier, Culpeper, Orange, Spottsylvania, Louisa, Fluvana, Goochland, Buckingham, and a few adjoining counties. In 1837 Professor Benjamin Silliman published (Journal of Science, first series, vol. 32, p. 98) the results of a personal examination of mines in the vicinity of Fredericksburg, of which a brief summary will be given. He describes the gold-bearing quartz as embedded in talcose and mica slate, principally the latter. In far the greater number of cases the eye *Columbia, 3 per cent. în gold, April, 1856. † North America, 25 per cent. in stock, no cash dividend, April, 1868. State, par 100, since May; previously, 60. § Third National, for first ten months. Pawners' Bank, surplus over 8 per cent given athocrity. detects nothing but quartz, or sometimes metallic sulphurets of iron, zinc, or lead, and the observer, unless previously instructed, would never suspect the presence of gold, either distinct or in the metallic sulphurets. In the vicinity of the quartz veins rich washings occur. In Spottsylvania county, on a branch near the Whitehall mine, $10,000 was taken in a few days from a space twenty feet square, and $7,000 was found near Tinder's mine, in Louisa county in the course of one week. It often happened that successful alluvial mining preceded the discovery of vein mines. Of the latter several are described. 1. Busty's Mine, situated fifty miles from Richmond and fifty-three miles from Fredericksburg, in solid quartz veins, fifteen to eighteen inches thick, at depth of twenty-two feet; structure of vein coarsely granular, like loaf sugar, free from foreign matter except inherent gold, and so white that even when pulverized it showed no tint of color; yield on one trial $80 per ton; on another trial $240 per ton. 2. Moss mine, near the above; situated in decomposed slate-rock; surface of vein little else than red clay, but firmer, and stratified below; inclination of rock and included quartz vein about 45°; direction by compass north by east, and south by west; diameter of vein sixteen, eighteen, twenty-four, twenty-seven, and thirty inches, averaging twentyfour inches; quartz laminar, easily broken and separated from slate by blasting, but showing no signs of gold, though examined by a magnifier; three tests returned $100, $140, and $200 per ton, yet in neither case was gold visible in quartz or ore. 3. Walton Mine, situated in Louisa county, forty miles south west of Fredericksburg; quartz vein firm and compact; one foot wide; occasionally porous and interspersed with iron pyrites and a dark iron ore, probably proceeding from their decomposition; penetrated by two shafts of seventy and forty feet; first trial of pour ore, $80; second trial of average ore, $160; third trial of ore taken at random, $400; fourth trial of specimen, showing gold to the naked eye, $2,660 per ton; average of the series of assays, $820 per ton. 4. Culpepper Mine, situated eighteen miles west of Fredericksburg, upon the Rapidan; a tract of 524 acres; hydraulic power for a twenty-stamp mill; four adits with connecting shafts; main vein ten feet wide, but prone to divide into strings not larger than a finger, nearly parallel and separated only by portions of the slaty rock; gold more abundant in these strings than in larger veins; much iron accompanying the ore; pulverized quartz always ed or brown; iron pyrites in some places fresh and brilliant, elsewhere decomposed; strata nearly perpendicular; specimens from fourteen localities, mixed together, returned $30 per ton; specimen from a vein considered rich, but showing no sign of gold, gave $50 per ton. In the following paragraph, Professor Silliman only anticipates the experience of miners at this day: "Gold is often found in pyritical ores in which the gold is embedded in fine particles. This mass when reduced to fine powder gives a residium of oxidized iron about equal in weight to the fine gold, the latter being malleable or flattened, while the former, being brittle, remains rounded or angular. In washing this mixture in the pan the gold generally remains on the upper side of the mass, and is cherefore more liable to be washed off by the slightest ripple of the w: er. On the other hand, when the gold is embedded in quartz ores, especially those with fine fractures, called in Virginia' sugar ore,' or more properly granular quartz, the gold being of a similar form, is more quickly disengaged, and appears in larger grains. "On the contrary, the ferruginous grains, or iron sand, are so fine as to be scarcely visible, and are invariably found at the bottom of the mass or residium, and therefore, as well as on account of their greater weight, are much less liable to be carried off by the ripple of the waters." Several successful instances of alluvial mining near the Rapidan are also mentioned; on a Hempstead farm, $4,000 in 1831-'32, of which nearly $3,000 in sixty days; another instance two or three miles from Rapidan, $12,000; a third, $40,000; all in the vicinity of the Culpepper mine. The most remarkable of the foregoing statements relate to the assays of ores from the Walton Mine. Prof. Rogers, of the University of Virginia, inspected this mine in 1836, and ascertained that in the lower adit leading from the main shaft, the auriferous vein was twelve inches in width, and that the talcose rock underlying the vein was also auriferous to a distance of six inches, and sometimes more, from the quartz. He also observed the continued yield from the quartz, and the uniform dissemination of the gold throughout the vein, and the lower enclosing rock. assay of Professor Rogers returned $280 per ton. An A writer in Harper's Monthly Magazine for December, 1865, describes the gold mines in the vicinity of Richmond; having previously given some general information of the conditions under which gold has been discovered and mined. "Sienite, gneiss, greenstone, and porphyry," he says, "appear to be the primary sources, and the pyrites are evidently the immediate matrix of gold. All iron pyrites contain gold, and often silver, only excepting those of the coal formation; and the extensive gold deposits of Virginia may be said to be literally one continuons belt or accumulation of veins of iron pyrites. "Most of the gold-bearing rock which has hitherto be enmined in Virginia is principally a kind of talcose slate, somewhat resembling soapstone, but not so greasy to the touch. This slate is red and ferruginous at the surface, but at a greater depth is filled with small crystals of iron pyrites which are decomposed near the surface and appear as peroxyd of iron, giving the slate a brown or yellow tinge. This slate is a metamorphic rock, and runs in a regular belt parallel with the Alleghany mountain chain. "The gold found in the State of Virginia occurs in exceedingly small grains, often so fine as to be not only invisible to the naked eye, but undiscernible even by the assistance of a strong lens. This is the case even when the ores are worth three or four dollars per bushel. Some veins of the slate region contain coarse gold in grains as large as the head of a pin, and even larger. These are generally found in veins of quartz in which the pyrites are concentrated into larger masses. Where the pyrites are disseminated in fine crystals through the mass of the rock, the gold is found to be very fine. In the first pyrites the gold is often invisible, even if after separation it appears to be coarse. By natural or artificial decomposition the gold becomes visible, the pyrites are converted into oxyd of iron, and, by aid of a lens, the gold can be detected embedded in the oxyd of iron. Another form in which the native gold is not unfrequently found in Virginia is in quartz, in which it is embedded. Solid white quartz, both in veins and in crystals, is found, in which the gold appears in spangles, plates, grains, and also in perfectly developed crystals. Throughout the gold regions of Virginia copper pyrites are found in all the metallic deposits. It invariably accompanies the gold-bearing iron pyrites, and is always considered a good indication of richness. Cases have often occurred in which the largest amount of treasure has been abandoned, because the miners had not the knowledge of proper appliances for separating the precious yield of gold and copper." The writer of the article here quoted proceeds to give many interesting details of the gold mines of Goochland, Buckingham, and Fluvana counties. Among these are the Belzoro mine, developing seven veins, which vary in width from two feet six inches to thirty feet; Marks mine, with four gold-bearing quartz veins; Waller mine, vein of brown oxyd of iron, six feet thick; Tellurium mine, sold in 1848 to Commodore Stockton, who is reported to have extracted $250,000 in nine years; Snead gold mine, of three viens, one of them being four feet wide, and composed of white quartz, which contains argentiferous galena, copper sulphates, and gold: Ford mine, revealing copper pyrites largely; and Lightfoot mine, with four well known and very rich veins; all of which have been worked successfully at different periods since 1828. The mineral wealth of Virginia in other respects is unsurpassed by Pennsylvania or any part of the Union. NORTH CAROLINA. The gold district of North Carolina extends from northeast to southwest in the general direction of its leading counties, namely: Guilford, Randolph, Davidson, Rowan Stanly, Cabarrus, Mecklenburg, and Union. In 1825 Professor Denison Olmstead designated as the district within which alluvial mining was prosecuted, the counties of Montgomery and Anson, and the eastern portions of Mecklenburg and Cabarrus as then organized. Gold was first discovered in a "thin stratum of gravel enclosed in a dense clay, usually of a pale blue, but sometimes of a yellow color." This description is easily recognizable as the detritus of the gold bearing rock afterwards discovered. further to the west. Many facts of the early success of placer mining on the tributaries of the Pedee might be adduced, but it must suffice in this connection, to repeat from Wheeler's History of North Carolina an enumeration of the nuggets which have been obtained since the first discovery in 1799: No more intelligible account of the placers of North Carolina exist than the communication of Professor Olmstead in 1825, from which a few paragraphs will be given. After describing the gold-bearing alluvium as gravel enclosed in pale blue or yellow clay," he adds: "On ground that is elevated and exposed to be washed by rains this stratum frequently appears at the surface, and in low grounds, where the alluvial earth has been accumulated by the same agent, it is found at the depth of eight feet; but where no cause operates to alter its original depth it lies about three feet below the surface. A miner sometimes meets a stratum of the ferruginous oxide of manganese in a rotten, friable state. In some instances the clay is deep red." Very soon, however, these gold deposits were traced to the auriferous lodes traversing a belt of talcose, micaceous, chloritic, and hornblende slates, which passes through several counties on the east side of another belt of granite and west of one of trap. These veins, as early as 1828, were described as follows by Charles E. Rothe, a miner and mineralogist from Saxony: "They occur in greenstone formation often from two to four feet in thickness and a mile or more in length, which give assurance that they sink to a considerable depth. Their general direction is east and west, dipping occasionally 40° to 50° north. The ores and minerals in these veins are rhomboidal iron ore, prismatic Iron ore, pyramidal copper pyrites, and prismaticiron pyrites. In the last two is a mechanical inixture with each other. They show distinct signs of having been changed from their original form. Where the atmosphere could have any influence on the pyrites we find that one part of the sulphur has escaped, the consequence which is, the metallic appearance of the pyrites is changed to that of brown-reddish oxide of iron, and owing to this color we can see the fine particles of gold, and ascertain the richness of the deposit. But where the pyrites have not undergone this change, then the gold cannot be discovered, owing to the color being nearly the same. The greenstone near the vein is most generally decomposed, and mixed with a great number of loose crystals of prismatic iron pyrites. Between the greenstone and the vein, or at the place of junction, the gold is most generally found." The gold district of North Carolina is the second belt of the table land, its positions moderately elevated, and it is very seldom that the highest hills of Davidson, Randolph, Rowan, Cabarrus, and Mecklenburg counties are traversed by vein fissures. In 1856 a report by Ebenezer Emmons, upon the geology of the midland counties of North Carolina, was published, which gives a detailed description of thirty mining localities. Abstracts of his observations upon the leading mines of Guilford, Randolph, Davidson, Rowan, Stanly, Cabarrus, Mecklenburg, and Union counties will best illustrate the characteristics of the auriferous belt through the State. The order in which these counties are nained coincides with their geographical position, commencing on the north: 1. McCulloch Mine, in Guilford County, brown or desulphurized ore, to a depth of one hundred and thirty feet; vein two feet wide at surface, increasing to twenty-four feet, with a dip at angle of forty-five degrees;. brown ore, soft and easily crushed, yielding $30 to $40 per ton, and sometimes $100; at level of one hundred and thirty feet, there are six inches brown ore on foot-wall, then copper pyrites, then a belt of brown ore containing nodules or concretions of pyrites more or less changed the middle |