Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1890-12-26
Where Gold is Found.
HoMEwooD, Montgomery Co., Md,

HoMEwooD, Montgomery Co., Md,
~ u December II, 1890.
Editor Of the Sentinel:
Dear Sw: l send you clipping from the
Imes.Star, Cincinnati, Ohio, which, If in
whole or in part, you think may interest
the readers of your paper it is at your dis
posal.
When my brother, Col. James W. Albert,
was with me during the Autumn, we WIS.,
tied the Old Montgomery and the Sawyer
mines. The information respecting these
mines was then obtained.
Yours, respectfully,
within the last four or five years" said
Col. Jas. w. Albert, president of the Cincin-
natl Natural History Society, to Times
Star reporter, athe mines of the Eastern
slopes OF the Appalachian mountains have
been developed very rapidly. Gold deposits
are found all the way from Quebec to Geor-
gia, and the only question is whether or not
It will pay to work them. If quartz rock
will assay $50 per ton it pays. There are
greater, as for instance the old Montgomery
Mine, Of Montgomery county, Md, which.
visited this year. This mine assayed
$41147 of gold and $22 90 Of silver per ton,
making the gold clear profit. This mine
consists OF honey comb quartz, and the mine
is we'll in the solid rock, which is now
forty feet deep. Gold occurs in the older
sedimentary and igneous rocks Of metamor.
phic formation, and in some of this quartz
you can see the gold running in fine veins.
In 1546 visited the gold mines Of Sante
Fe, N. NJ, and l consider these mines of
Maryland better than those at that place or
in Mexico, either. There are ten mines now
being worked successfully in the neighbor-
hood of Montgomery county, some of them
only fourteen miles from Washington city.
Three OF these mines are owned by Senators
Sawyer, Sabin and Allerton. They have
erected mills and put In improved ma
chinery, and, considering that the mines
have been in operation only few years,
they are doing big work.
Senator Sawyer, for example, has rail-
road o. his own running from his mines to
his mill. He first bought 1876 acres of land
for farm and afterwards found the gold
He then erected three mills side by side.
The first is a crushing mill where the quartz
is well mashed. Then it goes to the stamp.
ing mill, where it is pounded as fine as
flour; next this powder or -four is taken to
cred with heavy woolen blankets and are
slightly tilted SO that water will run off
easily. The -four Is thrown upon these
tables and the water turned on. The quartz
flour is washed off and the fine particles of
gold settle down and become entangled in
the woolly blankets. These blankets, after
becoming sufficiently charged with gold,
are taken to an oven and burned. The ashes
are mixed with quicksilver and forms an
amalgam with the gold, leaving the foreign
matter by itself Now this amalgam Is put
into buckskin bag and wrung. Much of
the quicksilver is pushed through the pores
of the leather, while the gold remains in,
still slightly amalgamated. This residuum
is now taken ard placed in crucible and
the quicksilver is driven off as vapor. This
vapor is condensed and used for the same
process again. This process is in use all
over the East.
"Gold, as have stated, is found in rocks
of metamorphic formation. 1t seems to be
a rule that it can be found in the neighbor-
hood of hot springs, which surely owe their
existence to volcanic heat. The soil Of the
slopes on the east side of the Blue Ridge
mountains, where gold is found, is of red
dish color, which would again suggest heat.
The proximity of states and quartz (which
are rocks made by fire. and of asbestos and
breccia marble or pudding stone, are also
indications of gold. All these different
signs or indications exist TO day in Mary
land and Virginia and would seem to indi-
cate an inexhaustible supply. The counties
OF Fauquief, Culpepper, Louisa, Fluvanna
and Buckingham In Virginia have mines
which are being worked by English and
American capital. In upper Georgia old
works were recently uncovered which show
ed that this region had been explored and
then abandoned by the early Spaniards.
In 1850 and 1861 gold was discovered at
Chaudiere, Canada, in the vicinity of Que.
bee. These mines are also in the vicinity OF
warm springs, as the name would indicate.
"The gold found in these regions is of
reddish color. Besides gold, tin, iron and
lead are found In these mountains, and as
in the cass.of gold, the supply seems 10 be
limited TO the eastern side. GRANTEES in
great abundance arc losaz1eear Rockville,
Nd, while milky quartz is IN such abund-
ance that it is used for macadamizing roads,
the great road from Brookeville, Md, TO
Washington being of this material. This
milky quartz is ground as fine as powder,
and then sent to Trenton, New Jersey, to
be used in making porcelain. 1t is almost
pure silicon, and exists in great abundance
Unity Ridge, in Montgomery county, Md,
is formed OF pure silicon. 1t is one half a
mile long. Gathers Rock is q noted for
nation OF pure silicon in Montgomery coun-
ty, Md Mines of tin have been opened in
Rockbridge county, Virginia, which yield
5000 plates of the metal weekly, and the
proprietors promise 10 turn out = 900 plates
per week, as soon as they get in good work