practically total cessation caused by the Civil War. Since then there have been spasmodic revivals and depressions, due undoubtedly in a great measure to local causes and excitements, and to the financial condition of the country at large. Considering the small total output of the South, such fluctuations may have been caused by the successful working of a single mine, shown for instance, by the increased production of South Carolina since 1890, owing to the revival of the Haile mine.
The first practical, systematic mining operations appear to have been in Xorth Carolina, beginning about the year 1800. From ISO! to 1827 (inclusive) this State furnished all of the gold produced in the country, amounting to $110,000. The progress up to 1S20 was very slow, and mining was restricted to a very limited area. Prof. Olmstead, the first State Geologist of Xorth Carolina, in his writings,1 estimated the extent of the then known gold country at 1000 square miles. He says: " The gold country is spread over a space of not less than 1000 square miles. With a map of Xorth Carolina, one may easily trace its boundaries, so far as they have been hitherto observed. From a point taken eight miles west by south of the mouth of the Uwharie, with a radius of eighteen miles, describe a circle; it will include the greatest part of the county of Montgomery, the northern part of Anson, the northeastern corner of Mecklenburg, Cabarrus a little beyond Concord on the west and a corner of Rowan, and of Randolph. In almost every part of this region gold may be found in greater or less abundance at or near the surface of the ground. Its true bed. however, is a thin stratum of gravel enclosed in a dense mud, usually of a pale blue, but sometimes of a yellowish color. . . . Rocky river and its small tributaries, which cut through this stratum, have hitherto proved the most fruitful localities of the precious metals."
In 1820 articles began to appear in the public journals calling attention to the Xorth Carolina gold deposits, and itinerant German miners and mineralogists had already come into the country in some number.
In 1821, when Olmstead wrote, there was a considerable mining population, whose average earnings were from 60 to (55 cents per day (approximately 65 to TO cents in the present standard of gold coinage). The toll paid to the owners of the land varied from one-fourth to occasionally one-half of the yield. The dust came to be quite a medium of circulation, and miners were accustomed to carry about with them quills filled with gold, and a pair of small hand-scales, on which they weighed out gold at regular rates, (for instance, 3^ grains of gold was the customary equivalent of a pint of whiskey). The gold found its way largely
