The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-12-17

,o work the quartz veins.- except where they were rich enough to pay for working the ore with pestle and mortar. In this operation the quarts was crushed by hand. and the gold l manned out with an ordinary gold pan. One can imagine that in order to as- sure even common wages. the ore I must have been very rich. We find l however that this slow and laborious method was used by many who appar- I ently derived satisfactory returns therefrom. The arastra and stamp mill followed. but these were of a very crude type and suitable only Tor working the soft decomposed surface ores; after these were exhausted and | the more complex and refractory ores
 were reached they ceased to De pron-
 table.
 | According to the Government Mint
 statistics. the gold production of the | lAppalachian region from i1sS to lS94 ] inclusive. was approximately $4o,o0o,- 1 900. Alabama was credited with $500,- 900. It can be safely estimated that | the yield was more than double this amount, for a great deal or gold was mined that. was never reported to the mint and as. until recent years. no systematic means were employed in | rathering statistics, a correct esti- | mate would have been impossible. | Location of Regiops.
 | In referring to the geography of the gold regions of Alabama we could not do better than to quote Dr. Smith. who has in his preliminary report on the Mineral Resources of the Upper ! Gold Belt, published in 1896. mapped I 1t as follows: The gold region of Alabama occupies a triangular area in the eastern part of the State.
 bounded by a line entering the State from Georgia. five or six miles south
 of the parallel of 34 degrees. rum ming thence south-westward to Jem- | mison. in Chiffon County. and from that point through Wetumpka, to Co., | lumbus. Ga In this area. are includ- ed parts or all of the following coun- | ties: Cleburne. Clay Talladega, Coosa. | Chiffon, Elmore. Tallapoosa. Macon. Lee, Chambers and Randolph, aggre- gating about 4.425 square miles. It is | the termination towards the south | west of what has been termed by Prof. Becker. of the United States Geological Survey, "The Georgia belt of the Southern Appalachian Gold Fields"
 The formation in which gold oc- CUTS has been classified by | Smith, Becker and other we'll known geoIogists. as Archean. or perhaps to and is composed principally of argflla- ceous. gneissic and micaceous schists. which are traversed by belts and dikes I of granite, diabase, diorite and vari-
 ous other kinds of granite rocks. Bor- | dering upon and in places overlying Algonkian system Is the Cambrian. generally considered to be of Paleczoic age. Inasmuch as Dr. Smith has failed
 to find any fossils in these rocks. there may be some doubt as to whether they are really Cambrian and belong to the PaIeozoic, or whether they should not more properly be assigned to the Archean. Considered from an economic standpoint, this is. however. of small importance and we will, therefore. in Cambrian My principal reason for re- | ferring to the Cambrian formation was
 to call attention to the possibilities of | finding gold therein. I am not aware that 1t has been thoroughly prospected lin Alabama, or that any effort at all lhas been made to discover gold in the lCambrian rocks of the Southern Ap- palachians. In some parts of the great Rocky Mountain System the various
 strata of the Cambrian and also of the iCarboniferous are auriferous and high lily productive.
 The rocks of the Appalachians be- longing to this age are almost identi- itioned just now and no doubt were
 equally susceptible to naturalization. Now, provided they were subjected to 1 the agencies accountable for the deposition of gold in the Cambrian and Carboniferous areas of other regions.
 1t is reasonable to suppose that these, ltoo, were enriched. At least believe | the idea Is suggestive and worthy of consideration.
 Discoveries by aTenderfeet."
 Only few years ago the idea that
 gold could be found in the limestones
 and hard siliceous quarZites of the Black Hills was secuted as being ut terly preposterous, and no experienced
 miner would have been foolish enough | to prospect them. Today these unin- viting and apparently barren rocks are
 producing millions of dollars annually. Strange to say the discoveries of gold in these measures were made by
 novices or to adopt the vocabulary Of
 the West, by "tenderfeet." M Some of the schists of Alabama con-
 tain a great many garnets. and there
 is good reason for the hypothesis that
 these garnets carry gold, or at least are closely associated with 1t. Speak
 ing of the Georgian Belt. MT. Becker says: 4auch of the schist carries gar. nets, and the garnets are auriferous. I cleaned, crushed and banned few ounces of these, and obtained many
 small grains of gold" He also ex- pressed an opinion that more attention 1 should be given 10 the eXpIoratlon oI these garnetiferous rocks. His re-
 marks, without doubt. apply to the Ala bama Belt.
 Gold is found in Alabama in quartz
 veins, in placer deposits, and in some
 of the pyritlferous ores. The quartz
 veins occupy Assures or openings
 which have been formed in the coun- | try rock and which have been vari- ously classified as bedded. segregated and veins of injection. Prof. George F..
 Becker has pronounced the quartz veins of Georgia and the Carolinas to
 be true Assure veins. Without doubt
 the quartz veins of Alabama are of the same origin. Owing to their peculiar ten- dency to assume lenticular structure, l 1. e., a continuous vein of lens shaped 1 masses of quartz, connected by small
 stringers, he has very fittingly charac- terized them as 'stringer leads" Very often the small stringers are discon- | tinuous, or rather, disconnected. How ever, they can usually be found either l in the foot or hanging wall. The veins I are of imbricating character and show much shingling. In following these veins down cross cuts should be fre- quently made in order to lose the lead. | The auriferous rock of these veins consists of quartz of different kinds
 and colors, varying from pure white l to brown or bluish black. Gold bear
 ing sulphides are often found in the
 quartz, Near the surface where these | sulphides have been oxidized the gold Is noticeably free and amen