DISTRIBUTION OF GOLD MINES IX THE SOUTH APPALACHIAN REGION. 79
using the Dahlonega method of sluicing and milling (see p. 107). It has been idle for the past eight or nine years.
The Yonah Land and Mining Company controls some 4800 acres of mining property situated mainly along the watershed of Dukes creek. This property is a consolidation of what was formerly known as the Toxtox, the Mercer and the Butt mines. The company has pursued extensive vein explorations on their land under the direction of Air. E. T. AVhatley. This prospecting work has disclosed a large number of auriferous quartz-veins, which have a general strike of X. 20° E. and a dip of about 85° S.E., while the dip of the country-rock is steeply to the X.AT. Although of low grade ($3 to $7 per ton) and of small width (6 inches to 3 feet), some of these veins might, under close management, be mined and milled at a profit. The producing operations of this company are confined to placer work with hydraulic elevator in the bottom land of Dukes creek. The elevator used and the method of work in the pits is similar to that employed by the Chestatee Company (see p. 101). A 65-foot head of water is obtained from a 7-mile ditch line. The gravel bed averages about 3 feet in thickness, covered by 6 inches of peat and clay, and above this about 6 feet of soil overlay. The gold consists, to a large extent, of extremely rounded and waterworn nuggets, often aggregated in pockets, from one of which $1500 is reported to have been taken in one day.
The Loud mine, situated near Pleasant Retreat P. O., and about 11 miles east of Dahlonega, is one of the famous placers of the district, and has produced a large amount of remarkably well crystallized and wiry nugget gold. It has been known as one of the most extensive and richest deposits in the Southern States. For the past few years the work has been confined to hydraulicking old gravel piles. Water, under a 75-foot head, is leased from the Hand-Barlow Company of Dahlonega and is supplied by a ditch 25 miles in length. Extensive cuts in the saprolites have been made here.
Other properties of importance in AVhite county are the Longstreet placer, 2| miles northwest of Cleveland, the Xacoochee Hills Gold Alining Company, the Martin Mining Company, the St. George property (also known as the Dean Mine), the Plattsburg (or Chattahoochee) Gold Mining and Milling Company, etc.
Besides these there are quite a number of petty operators, some washing gravel in sluice boxes, others mining rich, narrow seams in the saprolite and " beating " the ore in wooden stamp-mills, as, for instance, at the Thompson mine near the Yonah Land Company's property, where the mining operations were formerly carried on by a mother and son, the latter digging the quartz and carrying it on his back to the mill, while his mother attended to the beating.
