GEOGRAPHICAL ASD GEOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION OE GOLD BELTS. 15
bounded on the west by the Louisburg granite. The country rock is diorite, in great part sheared to a chloritic schist (as at the Mann..Arlington mine). The strike of the schists is X. 50° 60° E., and the dip 25° 40° S.E. Other intrusives, such as diabase, occur in the region. The quartz-veins. These occur (1) as lenses, from minute size up to 12 inches in thickness, interlaminated in the schists or cutting them at small angles; (2) as a reticulated network in the massive rocks. It is stated that the saprolites are auriferous over large areas and will repay hydraulic mining.
3. THE CABOLINA BELT.
This belt is one of the most extensive and important in the Southern Appalachians, though lying far to the east of the Blue Ridge. It is situated in the central Piedmont region, and extends from the Virginia line in a southwesterly direction across the central part of Worth Carolina into the northern part of South Carolina, where it sinks beneath the Coastal Plain, making its re-appearance in Abbeville county, S. C, and in Wilkes, aVEcDufhe and adjacent counties in Georgia, near Augusta. There are no mountain chains in the Carolina belt, the only prominences of consequence being a low range of hills known as the Uharie mountains, in Montgomery county, X. C, and the isolated peaks of Crowders and Kings mountains in Gaston county, ]ST. C, extending into York county, S. C.
The belt varies in Avidth from 8 to 50 miles; it is bounded on the east by the Jura-trias (Newark) and the coastal plain formations.
THE COUNTRY-ROCKS.
The gold-bearing rocks of the Carolina belt are (1) argillaceous, sericitic and chloritic metamorphosed slates and schists; (2) devitrified ancient volcanics (rhyolite, quartz-porphyry, etc., and pyroclastic breccias); (3) igneous plutonic rocks (granite, diorite, diabase, etc.); (4) siliceous magnesian limestone; (5) sedimentary pre-Jura-trias slates. The Jura-trias conglomerates along the eastern boundary have also been found to contain gold, but not in quantities of economical importance.
The argillaceous and sericitic 1 slates and schists, though in general highly metamorphosed and sheared, show many evidences of sedimentary origin. The siliceous magnesian limestones (Kings mountain, etc.), must be included here. All of these rocks are non-fossiliferous and must be provisionally classed as Algonkian. They are often silicified in varying degrees up to a completeness which renders the rock so
1 The general term " talc " schiRts. so often used, is very loosely applied, and generally incorrectly, as the true "talc " schists are comparatively rare; it should, from a mineralogical standpoint, more properly be hydro-mica or sericite schists.
