hard that it resists scratching with a knife. The chloritic schists are more truly the crystalline schists, and probably represent the sheared basic eruptives. They are even porphyritic and brecciated in places. They are not so abundant as the argillaceous schists, and are richer in accessory metamorphic minerals, such as garnet and epidote.
The general strike of the schistosity is N. 20°-55° E., and the predominating dip to the 1ST. "W. from 55°-85°. In many cases the force producing schistosity and slaty cleavage appears to have acted downward from the X."W., developing normal faulting with but little deformation.
The volcanic rocks occupy irregular patches along the eastern border of the belt, in close proximity to the western edges of the Jura-trias basins. They comprise both acid and basic types. The acid rocks are generally devitrified to such an extent that their real character is no longer recognizable to the naked eye, and they appear as ordinary cherts or homstones, although flow-structure is at times still discernible. Microscopic examination shows them to belong to the class of rhyolites and quartz-porphyries. They are sometimes sheared into schists, as for instance at the Haile mine, S. C. The basic types are dark green in color and perhaps pyroxenic in composition; they are sometimes massive porphyrites, but more generally sheared into schists. The pyroclastic breccias consist of angular fragments of the acid rhyolites and porphyries in a basic matrix. The age of these ancient volcanics is believed to be preCambrian. They seem to be analogous to, and probably contemporaneous with, similar rocks of the South mountain in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and other points along the Atlantic coast. The igneous plutonic rocks lie on the western side of the central slates; they consist of granites, diorites, gabbros, diabases, etc. In point of age they are supposed to be younger than the slates and schists on the east. Diabase dikes are common in the Carolina belt, and appear in general to have exercised a favorable influence on the richness of the ore-bodies which they intersect; the ores often are richer in the vicinity of the dikes. At the Haile mine, in Lancaster county, S. C, this is very marked.
The sedimentary pre-Jura-trias slates, mentioned above as the fifth class of gold-bearing rocks, are perhaps best developed near Monroe, Union county, X. C, and have therefore been called the Monroe slates. These slates are but little indurated and lie in flat-bedded alternating synclinals and anticlinals. They cover a considerable area, extending from Monroe northward and eastward, and appearing in Stanly and Montgomery counties. They dip under the Jura-trias conglomerate near Polkton, 20 miles east of Monroe, and might be looked upon as Lower Paleozoic; but the absence of fossils, so far as present search has gone, must, for the time being, place them provisionally in the Algonkian.
