Birmingham age-herald., 1895-08-22
ALABAMA'S WEALTH
Of Gold and kaoIin Fully Reviewed by an Old Miner Who Knows Whereof He
 Speaks.

To the Age Herald:
 It seems that the fake find in Mar shall county, Alabama, heralded to the world some months ago as one of mill lions in gold has become confoundcd with the recent developments and very rich and legitimate vein openings of Ar bacooehee. This discovery should ere ate no surprise, for in the early 40s, be- fore the discovery of gold in California, from Dahlonega in Georgia and Arba- coochee in Alabama there was enough gold washed from the sand and from rich float rock on the surface (beaten in nor tars) to warrant the erection by the United States government Of mint. From this belt of gold ore which begins in Alabama and runs through North Car olina into Virginia, where solid piece of gold weighing twenty-eight pounds was found over 900 of refined gold has been wnted. The amount actually taken out was greater, as some of It never found it's way to mint reports. With some experience in old Mexico, Idaho, Arizona and few other camps where I found more Indians and grizzly bear than gold-an attorney for the eel ebrated ''Ivanhoe" of Bob Ingersoh fame T came ten or twelve years ago and pitched my first tent at the now and then justly famous Arbacoochee mines banned gold and broke rock on sections T. 6 and ,, where these finds have been made. and saw $S000 taken out of 1000 pounds of ore-a small stringer which runs east and west almost at right an- gles to the true granite or nefls VelnS said to be recently iscovered-eVideh1ly the Veta Madre of the belt. It was not difficult even ten or twelve years ago for old Hidrick and myself to find about tha old dumps a. $1O or $20 nugget. l remem- her one piece that was rather long and pointed that was too large to go through the. grizzly of the rockers, the smaller end having caught in one of the s inch holes and had been bent and thrown out on the gravel pits by the shovel. The veins were covered up by an overflow or decomposed states, quartz and gran1tes, forming on a bottom of sediment along Dine creek, which had been pitted m earlier years. Old man Hidrick told me about the Hiltons and went to Ox1oro, where the story now verified was told me- "But IS long as Denson lives or owns the property" said Hilton, T will never open the yein though when l left 1t l could see the rock was yellow with gold.
 From Arbacoochee I went to Villa Rica. Burnt Hickory, Blue Hill and the Bonner mines; thence into Georela .o Dahlonega, and still on to Nacouchee valley and Blood mountain, near the fabulously rich finds of Cooper's Creek in North Carolina. Though 1ound good gold ores here and there, in the main at the water level the ores run into a gold sulphpret, and when they were or the larpelt volume they were of the lowest graddEsay $5 to $7 per ton, and nothing but the gulches near where the ores had been eroded and the concentrated fine gold by nature had been worked. l have never found but one branch of this Kind that had been overlooked, for the old placer mines were good prospectors,
 ic gl1idp tO those who may Ego prospecting" to look out for their boot prints.
 No interest in Arbacoochee have l, and I went back west without confidence m the southern gold mines, notwithstand- ing the many rich localities where SO much free gold had been found, for knew that the sulphurets came in at the water level and but few of them. carried bonanza chimneys with gold nuggets in quantity to pay unless a scratch was made.
 At the exposition I discovered that the sulphuret ores of Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, which knew there and then were in great volume, could be mined at a profit. The old process Of chlorination, by roasting, etc.. would cost at least $6 per ton. Now. the cost, where a large volume of ore is mined and re- duced by reason of cheaper and better machinery and better methods, will not exceed $2.5O and probably less, per ton.
 The flake" and salting by steel rods and shotguns in the sub-carbonferous measures of Marshall county may have taken in some infant tenderfeet, who would shake hickory nut tree for per simmons but it is we'll known in Bir- mingham that I denounced the reported discovery as a fraud, for the geological maps of Alabama show that it is hun dreds of miles away from the metamor- phc and gold bearing zones l have de- scribed.
 There are three things essential to make a gold mine: First quantity, sec ond quality, third facilities.
 First then, it takes about two tons or 40O0 pounds of gold ore to stamp for each day. A ten-stamp battery requires good average and high grade ore and two years run to pay-say 10000 to 30,000 tons, but few ten stamp batteries pay, unless the ore is strictly free, takes the quick nicely and heavy enough to sink to the plates as soon as it leaves the bat tery. Most any average mine ought to produce ore enough to run at least twenty stamps or more. As to quality it must be either high or low grade-if high, smaller vein df true) and smaller bat tery and then a question of free or sul- phuret gold must be determined and the
 mill erected to suit, concentrating chlorination. etc. The greater the num-
 Der of stamps and the larger the volume of ore in sight the better. Plenty Of wood and water are necessary.
 It is all rot about cheap labor; when educated it increases in value.
 know of at least three or more prop critics in Alabama that would warrant the erection of reduction plants. similar to that of MT. Thes' of South Carolina, whose profits from the treatment Of the gold sulphurets by chlorination, or strict ly the ',Thes Process" pays 5 per cent dividend on $1, 900 000. The actual amount invested was about $300, ,000. At the los calities alluded to the ore is practically jnexhaustible, and the average mill run tests show about $5 per ton. There are other mines that will pay to work, show ing free gold or top, where it is oXidized by atmospheric waters and the sulphur long since set free by the sun, but at wa ter level the sulphurets come in sure for the Apalach gold belt of the south is in the main one of gold .sulphurets, and properly, economically and legitimately mined and worked will become source of great profit
 With the awakening in the southern states her long slumbering mineral zones of wealth will, I trust, come the develop ment not only of her mountains scanned ond fcsured by veins of gold, but also