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HISTORICAL XOTES: MIXIXG, METALLURGICAL AXD STATISTICAL. 27
out gold previously in a branch of Ward's creek near Dahlonega, which was then in the '' Cherokee Xation." The earliest mint returns from Georgia appear in 1S30.
Dr. Wm. B. Phillips ' gives 1830 as the probable approximate date of the first discovery of gold in Alabama. There were, however, no mint returns from this State until 1840.
Perhaps one of the chief reasons that the discovery of gold came so much later in Georgia and Alabama than it did in Xorth Carolina and A'irginia, was that this part of the country was then occupied by the Cherokee Indian Nation, under the supervision of the United States, and was not open to white settlers, although the latter repeatedly intruded.
After the discovery of gold, the long pending efforts of the States to acquire these Indian lands were stimulated and accelerated by the added thirst for the precious metal, and were finally successful in 1830, when the State laws were extended over the Nation and the Indians were removed. The mining region in Georgia was surveyed into 40-acre lots, which were distributed by lottery. A caustic writer of the time says that, " intrusive mining ceased then and there, and swindling mining commenced."
The first mention of gold in Tennessee is from Coco creek, Monroe county, in 1831," and this date corresponds with that of the first mint receipts.
The earliest record of gold in Maryland is in 1849,3 from the farm of Mr. Samuel Ellicott in Montgomery county, about 12 miles north of Washington, where a depth of 50 feet was said to have been reached, and about $3000 in gold to have been taken out. The mint reports, however, show no returns previous to 1868.
EABLY MINING OPERATIONS.
The greatest activity of gold mining in the South seems to have followed closely on the first discovery, being most marked from 1829 to 183fi, and probably due to the working of the more accessible virgin placers and more easily mined outcrops. The mint receipts show a renewed activity from 1839 to 1849, caused perhaps by more systematic vein explorations and improved methods. In the early fifties, the Californian discoveries abated the interest in the Southern gold field, and attracted the mining population westward, causing a natural depression in the output; from that time on there was a general decrease until the
^Geological Survey of Ala., Bull. No. 3,1892, p. 10. ?Safford's Geology of Tcnn., 1869, p. 490.
3 Emmons, E., Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 1819, Vol. v., p. 85; see also Am. Jour. Set, Vol. xvii, 1830. p. 202.
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