Gold Mining Historical Notes: Metallurgical, Statistical, Mining Page 28



	HISTORICAL XOTES: MIXING, METALLURGICAL AXD STATISTICAL. 29 into the country stores in exchange for merchandise at the rate of 00 to 91 cents per pennyweight (90 to 97 cents present standard). In these early days farming and gold digging went, in many cases, hand in hand; and this is indeed still true, to some extent, at the present day. When the crops were laid by, the slaves and farm hands were turned into the creek-bottoms, thus utilizing their time during the dull seasons. Where mining proved more profitable than planting, the former superseded the latter entirely. Thus, in speaking of the Tinder Flats placer in Louisa county, Va., Silliman says:¹ "Jenkins is in the habit of substituting a fall working in the gold, for which he obtains $1000 annually, as a condensation for his tobacco eroj), which he relinquishes in favor of the gold." Some of the more prominent localities developed into regular mining camps, where continuous and extensive operations were earned on. Such were, for instance, Arbacoocheo and Goldville, Ala.; Auraria and Dahlonega, Ga.; and Gold Hill and Brindletown, X. C. In the latter place it is stated that just before the California excitement as many as 3000 hands might have been seen at work on one of the streams of the region." In 1853 there was a population of about 2000 in the Gold Hill cam]). When Lumpkin county, Ga., was organized in 1832, Dahlonega (then called Xew* .Mexico) had a population of 800. During the mining boom Dahlonega had a population of 5000, and Auraria (then called Knueklesville) "2000 to 3000.³ At Goldville, Ala., between 1840 and 1850, there was a population of at least 3000. The first work, naturally, was the washing of the stream placers. After these were exhausted, attention was turned to the gravel deposits lying under cover of the alluvium. These were worked by sinking pits, and raising the gravel by hand labor. Where it was necessary the pits were drained by large vertical bucket-wheels, for which the power was derived from the stream directly, or by flume lines with over-shot or under-shot wheels. EARLY MINING AND METALLURGICAL METHODS. The first primitive washing, as in other newly discovered gold countries, was probably done with the pan. As the workings grew more extensive, this was superseded by the rocker, long torn and sluice-box; and, indeed, these original devices survive to the present day. ¹Bepnrt to the President and Directors of the Walton Mining Company. By Prof. B. Silliman, Jr., Fredericksburg-, Va., 1836. - Ores of Xorth Carolina, 188T, p. 312. ³ Recollections of A. G. Wimpy (a very old citizen of Dahlonega, Ga.) published in the Dahlonega Sifinal, Aug. 20, 1883.