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GEOGRAPHICAL AND GEOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION OF GOLD BELTS. 13
of the Southern Appalachians is differentiated into the following component belts:
1. The Virginia Belt. 4. The South Mountain Belt.
2. The Eastern Carolina Belt. 5. The Georgia Belt.
3. The Carolina Belt. 6. The Alabama Belt.
Other divisions might be made as, for instance, the isolated belts of auriferous rocks west of the Blue Ridge in Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee, and various minor belts in Georgia and Alabama; but such subdivision is unnecessary for the purposes of this paper.
In Bulletin 3, " The Gold Deposits of North Carolina," the Carolina Belt has been differentiated into the Carolina Slate, the Carolina Igneous and the Kings Mountain belts. For the purpose of this paper, however, where the geological descriptions of these various belts can only be briefly taken up, the above six main divisions will suffice, and for fuller and more detailed descriptions the reader is referred to the following papers:
" Reports on the Surveys of South Carolina," by O. M. Lieber, Columbia, S. C, 1S56, 1857, 1858, and 1859.
" A Reconnoissance of the Gold Fields of the Southern Appalachians," by George F. Becker.1
" The Gold Deposits of North Carolina," by H. B. C. Nitze and G. B. Hanna.2
" The Lower Gold Belt of Alabama," by William B. Phillips.3
"Mineral Resources of the Upper Gold Belt (of Ala.)," by Wm. M. Brewer and others.4
Work has been in progress by the Geological Surveys of Georgia and Alabama on the gold fields, and reports from these respective bureaus are expected to be published shortly.
1. THE VIRGINIA BELT.
This belt begins in Montgomery county, Maryland, and extends in a southwesterly direction, parallel to and on the east side of the Blue Ridge, to the North Carolina line. The best and most reliable, though incomplete, information regarding the geology of this region is given in the early reports of Prof. William B. Rogers"(1835, 1836 and 1840).5
The width of the belt is from 9 to 20 miles, covering an area of some 4000 square miles, and its best developed portion is in Fauquier, Cul-
1 U. S- Geolmjical Survey, Sixteenth Annual Report, 1804-95, part iii, pp. 251-331.
2 Xnrth Carolina Geological Survey, Bull. No. 3.1896.
3 Geological Survey of Alabama, Bull. No. 3.1892.
4 Geological Survey of Alabama, Bull. No. 5, 1896.
« The Geology of the Virginia*, D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1884, pp. 74-80, 131-132, 453-460.
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