Resources of South-west Virginia

This county scarcely needs any other introduction than an allusion to its character as the great copper county of Southwestern Virginia; a character which has been established, really, for years; but, until recently, through the publicity given to the facts, by the author of this work, in various lectures in the Eastern cities, and by publication in Hotchkiss’ able periodical (The Virginian), these vast deposits have remained comparatively unknown. It is true they may have been alluded o both by Professor Rogers and Professor Lesley; but at that early day there were so few developments as to afford only the most meager data upon which to base statements.

Carroll, being rich in other resources–in iron ores, timber, fine streams, mineral springs, etc.–must be regarded, each succeeding year that her unquestionably important resources are developed, as one of the most valuable of the brilliant gems that go to make up the remarkable series of mineral counties known as Southwest Virginia.

In fact, so great is the body of sulphurated ores alone in the county, that they, with plentiful means of transportation, must form the basis of industries on a large scale, the extent of which it would be difficult, now, even to approximate. Thus, when the great West shall have exhausted the virgin strength of its soil, and becomes a much larger purchaser than now of good fertilizers, these heavily sulphurated ores will have been brought into easy communication with other valuable constituents–both those of South Carolina and of Carroll’s sister counties–and will become, in the time of the country’s greatest demand, one of the heaviest manufacturers of cheap and efficient fertilizers, perhaps in the world. It would be curious and interesting to show how such industries could be established; what ingredients, such as potash, etc., could be brought together, and how they could be made into excellent and cheap fertilizers; but the fact that the lines of transportation are still wanting, as well as space, admonishes us to leave the subject for future consideration. In that time, no doubt, some cheap means will have been found by which those feldspars of Grayson and Carroll, holding fourteen percent of potash, can be used in connection with the sulphur of the abundant Carroll County ores. It is true, this is somewhat generalizing; but it will be only the uncandid mind which will be slow to admit the almost certainty of the above reflections, not to speak of the gigantic operations in the reduction of copper even now seriously contemplated by some of the most experienced and capable men in that line of business in the country. That Carroll County, with adequate means of transportation, will develop mines of lasting and permanent value, there can be no doubt; and that this county will form one of the most considerable factors in the solution of the State’s future prosperity, is beyond a question. It is able, by means of its vast hidden wealth, to bring lines of railway through the county, and will inevitably increase the tax-paying power of its own and surrounding communities to so great a degree as to render it a fit comparison to say, that that capacity will have improved a thousand fold.

How Bounded

Carroll is separated from Wythe and Pulaski on the north by the Iron Mountain range, locally termed here the Poplar Camp Mountains; northeast by Floyd County; southeast and southward it is divided from the county of Patrick by the main Blue Ridge; and touches the North Carolina line. Westerly it is bounded by Grayson County.

How Watered

Carroll is watered by New River and some of its considerable tributaries, Big and Little Reed Island Creeks and their headwaters, Poplar Camp Creek, Chestnut Creek, and some minor streams. All of those being bold and regular in their flow throughout the year, give to the county a name of being well watered.

Geological

The geological features of the county are nearly identical with those of Floyd and Grayson, except that Grayson has such an immense quantity of granite, which neither Carroll nor Floyd seem to have. The geology may, then, be said to be comprised between the Laurentian gneissoid series, near the heart of the Blue Ridge, and the Huronian, inclusive. The dip of the rocks has that general appearance of being monoclinal southwardly, or rather southeastwardly, common to most of the rocks of this region; but in places there were once great folds or anticlinals, the crests of which have been denuded and swept away in the lapse of time since they were so folded, leaving both sides of the fold with the same general average inclination.

Beginning in the Blue Ridge, we have generally a gneissoid formation; but, about the main crest, talco-mica, hornblende, and chlorite slates and schists and soapstone alternating with each other. In all these strata there are occasional heavy bands of quartz. The gneissoid formation prevails until you pass the general location of the Southern Copper Lode, as represented on the cross section. Then, in about half a mile north of this southern lode, you cross a broad band of hornblendic slates, schists, etc.; then soapstone; then slate, schists, and quartz veins; then, when within three miles of Hillsville, on the south, you touch upon the trappean rocks in which is situated the native copper lode; then, within a mile of Hillsville, alternations of hornblendic with mica slates and schists; then about Hillsville, the continuation of the strata which hold the northeastern extension of the Peach Bottom Copper Lode, here mostly gneissoid; then, for more than a mile, hornblende; then, for three miles, going northwardly across the great Northern Copper Lode and its branch vein the Dalton, through talco-mica slates, chlorite slates, and sometimes slightly hornblendic slates; then across several miles of a reputation of hydro-mica slates, etc., to the foot of Poplar Camp or Iron Mountain; then through the heavy quartzose and slightly felspathic bands composing the mountain on the south side, ending the section at the county line on the crest of the mountain.

Following the plan adopted for the other counties, an attempt will be made to describe the iron ores first, although the importance of the copper ores, comparatively, would rather suggest the propriety of their being treated first. The Iron Ores of Carroll, it may be submitted, cannot be regarded as the least important of its resources. Not only do they exist in very great quantity, but they are generally pure, except where they retain a little too much copper. It will be understood that the greater part of these ores are derived from the decomposition of iron and copper pyrites; even the magnetic and semi-magnetites may be thus derived; hence it is not to be wondered at that copper will be found in the iron ores.

Of the Brown Ores there are vast beds and deposits existing of gossan along the outcrops of the different pyritous veins, or lodes, of copper and iron. It would be difficult to estimate the quantity which occurs on the southern or Ore Knob Toncray Lode, as its greater distance from the railway transportation has caused it to be less explored than the more northern veins. A description of the location of this lode just here would rob it of that interest which would attach to it in its character of a copper lode; but it is not deemed to have that character for copper in Carroll County which it possessed either at Ore Knob Mine on the southwest, or at the Toncray Mine in Floyd County on the northeast. It is so far as known in Carroll County, of more value in its character as an iron vein. This may be applied both to its massive exhibits of gossan, or brown and red oxide, here and there, and to the masses of undecomposed sulphurets existing below. This is observable where this lode crosses Snake Creek. The vein here exposed had not been fully opened as to give a satisfactory showing of its true character when visited by Dr. Curry in 1859, since which time no work of consequence has been done in the way of development on the lode; but enough has been done, and the outcroppings are sufficiently abundant throughout, to make evident the vast quantity of both gossan and sulphuret it is capable of yielding.

It is nearly twenty-seven miles long in Carroll, with a variable thickness between twelve and twenty feet thick, lying in the gneissoid system, just north of the Blue Ridge, dipping southwardly, generally at high angles. It has been interesting feature of uniting with the Native Copper Lode somewhere near the head of Laurel Creek, in the boundary line between Carroll and Floyd. Of this fact, however, the writer is not positively aware, as it was not our of his power to follow up the Native Lode to the supposed junction; and it is a matter of regret, also, that he was not able to give the Southern Lode as thorough an inspection in Carroll as he gave it in Floyd and Ashe, or that he has given to the Great Northern Lode, the Peach Bottom, and the Native Lodes.

The next great bodies of Brown Iron Ores are found on the Great Northern Lode and its branch veins in the northern central portion of the county. The vast gossan outcrops of this lode, which passes, near Cranberry Plains, from the southwest to northeast through the county, have been mentioned by Dr. F. A. Genth in his report of the “Wistar Copper Mining Company” in 1876; Dr. Dickenson in his report to “The Dalton Mining Company” in 1857′; by Dr. Curry in his “Visit to the Virginia Copper Region” in 1859, recently quoted by Hotchkiss’s “Virginias” and were described by the author in several lectures delivered before meetings of the “The American Institute of Mining Engineers.” Beginning at the southwest end, bodies of this gossan, or hydrated peroxide of iron, are noticeable as the lode, after crossing New River for the last time, passes in to the county from Grayson, about three miles north of Old Town. Here, near the Leonard Mine, the Clifton Copper and Silver Mines, the lode begins to show those surface brown ores of iron which assume such vast proportions a miles or two northeast at the Great Outburst. It is possible that at the Great Outburst, and on Chestnut Creek property of Wistar Copper Mining Company, the ore is more than 150 feet thick by an average of 30 to 35 feet. Dr. Genth, in speaking of the 6,800 feet length of the lode, which he examined in 1876, says: “Taking the average width at 45 feet, and the depth of the limonite (gossan) workable as a valuable iron ore at 30 feet, and the weight of one cubic foot of this limonite at 150 pounds, the Chestnut Creek property contains at least a body of 586,000 tons of available iron ore, yielding about 50 percent of pig metal.”

Again, the Copperas Hill, on Crooked Creek, where the great lode appears to divide into two great veins, going northeastwardly, through all the old workings–on the lands of the Wythe Lead and Zinc Mines (which also own copper property), Vaughan, Ann Phipps, Wild Cat, Cranberry, Dalton mines, Ann Eliza, and Betty Baker mines–you find a tonnage of brown iron ores in the shape of gossan which will go up into the millions of tons.

These ores–as at the Betty Baker mines–often present the appearance of highly valuable ochreous deposits. And the value of the whole is now only a question of cheap transportation.

Specular Ores

The pure ores of this variety are not as yet found in very large quantities in Carroll, though five veins are strongly suspect in this series of rocks. Near Thompson’s Mill, on a hill north of a small creek which runs into Little Reed Island Creek, there is specular ore combined with magnetite in a vein not yet fully developed, but supposed to be six feet thick.

Magnetite

Magnetic iron ore is found in many localities in Carroll; it is found to follow a line just north of the Southern Lode; and again another series of outcroppings is observable both north and south of the strike on the Great Northern Lode, as well as in many other localities. Unfortunately a want of transportation has prevented the citizens from taking sufficient interest in these ores to have them developed.

The magnetite as showing in surface pieces is usually very good; and there isn’t enough titanium–as rutile–showing on the surface to warrant the belief that it is heavily impregnated with that impurity. As has just now been said, magnetite exists with specular ore in a vein which crosses a hill not far north of Thompson’s Mill. Should this vein be six feet thick, as suspected, the quantity of ore it will yield throughout its length above water level would be very great, the hills being usually 180 at their crests above water in the creeks. Nearer the Great Northern Copper Lode, on the northern side, as well as on the southern side, the ores picked up are a purer magnetite; but no satisfactory data have been collected yet as to the thickness of the deposits.

Iron Pyrites

To speak of the iron pyrites fully, again anticipates the description of the great metalliferous lodes carrying copper, which would seem more properly to belong to the chapter on copper.

Iron Pyrites in Carroll is found in many of the rock strata. Nearly every quartz lead has more or less of it. It is the great basic material of the Southern Copper Lode. It forms the greater mass of the Northern and Dalton Lodes, besides the minor ones it would be tedious to mention. To form even the most distant idea of its quantity, it is only necessary to imagine a length of 54 miles, by a thickness of 30 feet, of an unknown but very great depth. Much of this, strictly, is pyrrhotite or polarized pyrites. A proportion of it is also arsenical; the quantity of arsenic may assume, at points, large proportions. In all probability, the quantity of arsenic in the Southern Lode is much greater than in any other, judging from the constituents it shows in Floyd County.

The iron pyrites, under favorable conditions of cheap transportation, would become an important basis for large chemical works, including the manufacturers of fertilizers on a large scale. Much of it being above water level, it could be mined with great facility.

Besides the humble efforts of the author, Lieut. Maury, Dr. T. S. Hunt, Dr. F. A. Genth, and other gentlemen eminent in scientific pursuits have had something to say about these veins. To these may also be added the efforts of Dr. Curry and Dr. Dickeson. To. Dr. Curry may be ascribed the first effort to map out these veins, and illustrate them and the general geology of the country with proper cross sections; and the errors which he may have committed, here and there, are more than compensated by the mass of really reliable information which he gave at so early a day as 1859.

Taking the Southern or Ore Knob Toncray Lode into consideration first, it derives more of its importance as a copper lode from the splendid showings at Ore Knob, on its southwest extension, and the Toncray Mine, on its northeast extension, than from anything known of it in Carroll County; but it may be assumed that it must, at greater or less depths, at many places in Carroll, contain rich ores of copper. It is a matter of regret that its greater distance, along here, from railway transportation, has prevented it from being more thoroughly developed.

Native Copper

Next, going northwardly, is encountered the remarkable lode of native copper, which is known to run for eighteen miles in a direction which cuts diagonally across the general strike of the other veins. It was stated in the author’s paper recently read before the New York meeting of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, that this lode had a direction from northwest to southeast. This was putting it strongly, to show the difference between its course and that of the Great Northern Lode, which is from southwest to northeast. The true course of the Native Lode is more east and west. It is apparently perpendicular in attitude–6 feet of close, hard schistose material, holding native copper, having walls of tremolite and hornblendic trap, in some places yielding beryl.

Its location, as determined by actual survey, is shown on the large map accompanying this book. It will be seen from that, that it intersects the Peach Bottom Lode near Woodlawn, and traverses the formation in the direction of a point where the Southern Lode crosses the boundary line between Carroll and Floyd. It may be submitted that there, on the head- waters of Laurel Creek, valuable discoveries may be anticipated.

No estimated has as yet been given of the percentage of copper in the vein above eight per cent. The vein can be seen exposed at James Early’s, south of Hillsville, and at the point where it crosses Reed Island Creek besides other places.

The Peach Bottom Lode

This lode can be clearly traced from the southwest side of the county, very distinctly, as far as Hillsville. It passes close on the south of Woodlawn, and there on lands of that vicinity it shows plainly in nearly perpendicular leges of micaceous schists interlaminated with quartz. These rocks are gneissoid in structure as you approach Hillsville; and there they are in such workable ledges that some of the stone containing copper pyrites are now in the foundation of the court-house. It will be as well to repeat here what is said in the description of the Peach Bottom Copper Mine, that the ore of this vein, everywhere it has been examined, is copper pyrites, with some carbonate of copper near the surface, resulting from decomposition of pyrites, and, for the greater length of the vein, silver-bearing galenite. It is almost impossible to give a correct idea of its thickness or value in Carroll. So little has its presence been suspected by the mining world that sufficient developments have not as yet been made by which to judge correctly.

A quartz lode containing pyrites of iron and copper, in distinct crystals, of large size, is next found between the Peach Bottom Lode and the Northern Lode, lying nearer the latter than the former. It is not probable that it will prove of value, as the quartz forms too large a percentage of the measure.

Next north of this is the Great Northern Lode of copper and iron pyrites.

Northern Lode

It may be an error to call of these metalliferous veins by the technical term lode. As to this one, it has the appearance just west of Chestnut Creek of occupying a perpendicular fissure in a dipping stratification; while at a point near Early’s, at Cranberry Plains, it dips 45 degrees about, in a direction southeastwardly. At the latter it would be regarded as distinctly a bedded vein; at the former, a fissure vein or lode.

This great vein or lode, coming from the direction of Ducktown, makes its appearance in Carroll County about three miles north of Old Town on the Carroll-Grayson line, and extends, without intermission, twenty-five miles, northeastwardly, to the Carroll-Floyd line.

Its first southwestern opening of any consequence is at the Leonard opening, sometimes called “The Clifton Copper and Silver Mine,” so named because of a flattering analysis returned by an Indianapolis chemist, in which he ascribed to this part of the vein the remarkable quality of holding (besides sulphur, iron, and copper), nickel, silver, and arsenic. A great many persons do not credit this analysis, which was made for Mr. Edward Shelley, of Wytheville; but when the chemist was applied to, he persisted in saying that the ores sent him gave the results reported. It is somewhat singular that Dr. Genth did not find silver of nickel in the ores about Chestnut Creek, two and a half miles farther northeast. Mr. Dean, of Indianapolis, reported one mass of the ore sent him to contain over $450 to the ton in silver; but as the matter is entirely too important to be left to any degree to conjecture, no fuller report will here be given of the analysis, the hope being entertained that selected samples of the ores may be forwarded to different competent chemists for thorough assay. Net to the Clifton Mine is the Great Outburst–a name applied to an immense surface exhibition of gossan–on the western boundary of the tract of the Wistar Copper Mining Co.; then going east less than a mile you are on the main mining ground of this company, of which Dr. F. A. Genth made a very close and exhaustive examination of 6,800 feet of the lode near Chestnut Creek, in 1876, at which examination the author was present.

Although Dr. Genth says the vein is “between 30 and over 60 feet,” it is believed to be, at one place, over 150 feet thick.

Dr. Genth says:

Then, passing on northeastwardly through numerous good properties along the lode, such as the old Lineberry, Copperas Hill, Wythe Lead and Zinc Company’s copper lands, Vaughan’s and others, we come to the old J. Early property, now owned by the Baltimore firm of Clayton & Williams, as well as being owners of about nine miles’ length of the lode either way from this property. When Dr. Curry visited the property in 1859, the shafts and tunnels were then in better condition for exploring the vein than they have been ever since. In fact, little or no work has been done since then of a reliable nature: that is to say, very intelligently directed.

Dr. Curry says:

Going, then, northeastwardly, over several valuable openings on the lode, the Betty Baker Mine is reached, of which Dr. Curry says:

Since that time (1859), however, very extensive explorations have been made by Mr. James E. Clayton of Ore Knob, and the yellow sulphuret found below, as is usually anticipated in veins which show such a quantity of decomposed ores nearer the surface.

It may be remembered, in speaking of iron pyrites, it was state that this Northern Lode seemed, in going northeastwardly, to divide at Copperas Hill, and to present from there two veins. The southern of these two is called the Dalton vein. In fact, during the time when copper was commanding a high figure in market, previous to 1861, the excitement here was so high that everything containing the slightest trace of copper was magnified into a vein or lode; hence, we are informed, by some of the old reports still in existence, that in the vicinity of Cranberry Plains there were three distinct veins, known as the Early, Dalton, and Dickeson leads. Dr. Dickeson, then of Philadelphia (1857), in reporting to the “Dalton Mining Company,” says:

Mines	Copper Ores	Percentage
Dalton	Red Oxide	63.04
Dalton	Black Oxide	54.02
Dalton	Smut	25.12

It may be possible that enough has been thus shown to prove the inexhaustible richness of these metalliferous veins, under a proper system of mining, aided by cheap transportation.

It would tax the patience of the reader too severely to give more detail of mining operations on the Great Northern Lode; but enough work has been done, along its whole length, to prove that it has great thickness– sometimes reaching 150 feet; and that is sufficiently charged with copper to render it one of the most noted copper veins in the world

Gold and Silver

No well-ascertained information has been obtained, as yet, concerning gold and silver. Gold is strongly suspected in the Huronian series, occupying the southwestern prolongation of the Brush Creek Rocks, which are now yielding gold in Montgomery County. Silver is reported to exist in large quantities in the ores of the Clifton Mine, in a vein about eight feet thick; but silver mining would seem incredible. The same may be said of nickel and arsenic.

Mica

No mines, yielding large mica, have been opened yet in Carroll, though large mica is known to exist in the southern part of the county. Asbestos is also known to exist, but is not yet explored.

Building Stones

The granite and gneissoid rocks in the southern part of the county afford fine building materials; some of the granite has been used with satisfaction for millstones.

About Hillsville fine ledges of gneiss afford good building stone. The soapstone ledges are also called into requisition, from which to make linings to fireplaces, jambs, etc.

Mineral Springs

The mineral waters of Carroll have been known throughout this section as among the most curative in Virginia.

The old Grayson Sulphur Springs, on the north bank of New River, twenty miles south of Wytheville, has four springs, “all of which issue from a slate rock; three of them have openings near each other, within an area of thirty fee diameter, one of the springs, situated immediately under bluffs, and at all times preserving its perfect transparency and limpidness, in the small basin which has been excavated around it, flows off through a channel; upon which, immediately after leaving its basin, it commences to deposit the peculiar white material from which the characteristic title of White Sulphur is derived. The next, which is similarly arranged, throws down a reddish-brown color, hence the name of Red Sulphur is given it. The other two appear to be chalybeate. The temperature of these springs, which appears to be between 47 and 48 degrees, is so low, that besides furnishing a cool and refreshing draught, they are able to contain their gaseous contents much longer in a state of combination, thus giving them a decided advantage. Owing to the presence of carbonic acid gas, the water is found to be what is called in familiar terms, ‘a light water;’ a term designated to express that several glasses may be taken without experiencing any sense of oppression.”

These waters have the powerful adjuvants of wild and romantic scenery; river and mountain combining to render a lovely scenery more attractive, and a fine and inconceivably bracing air giving a zest of enjoyment which cannot possibly be equalled. If that were not enough, the fine trout streams of the vicinity afford noble sport, and the hills still contribute a deer now and then for the chase.

Timber

This county is well supplied with extensive forests of all the trees known to the latitude except fir. Toward the southern side of the county the timber areas are vast–almost unbroken. There are very good bodies of white pine in the northwestern section of the county, and in other portions. A great deal of the northern half of the county has been cut over, and the timber made into charcoal, to supply the iron furnaces and the lead mines in Wythe County; but there is enough remaining to supply a large demand for years to come.

Water Power

If the water power of Carroll could ever be utilized, there is enough of it surely to supply an almost unlimited requisition. The fall of New River, as it passes through the county being fully fifteen feet per mile in some places, would give a power calculated upon a discharge of 1,150 cubic feet per second in very low stages. Chestnut and Crooked Creeks discharge about 50 feet per second, and fall rapidly. Big Reed Island Creek, discharging for a great part of its length 100 feet per second and having a good average fall, would supply fine powers; Little Reed Island Creek, of about two-thirds the volume of Big Reed Island Creek, offers many fine sites for mills, etc. Poplar Camp Creek likewise offers a good many mill sites, though it is much smaller than the above named. These creeks, with their larger tributaries, supply every section of the county with ample water facilities of every kind except navigation.

Manufactures

At this time Carroll may boast of an iron forge or two, and a few carding machines; but beyond these its want of transportation has retarded its movements in the direction of manufacturing. No doubt the writer of a few years hence will have to record a large number of various kinds of works, strewn along the river and the great metalliferous lodes, if the well-known existence of great resources is any incentive.

Agriculture

The soil of Carroll, like that of Floyd County, is fertile where the underlying rock strata do not partake too heavily of manganiferous epidote and slate. All leges partaking of trap in their composition, when decomposed, leave a rich and permanent soil; hornblende schist usually follows the same rule. Talco-micaceous rocks usually leave a soil easily washed, which is not regarded for strength. The absence of the great granitic masses, which mark the northern side of Grayson County, and make it so rich, leaves the northern part of Carroll not so well off in agricultural as in mineral wealth. The southern half of the county seems to possess by far the largest areas of strong lands, except where the lands are sufficiently level, as those near Woodlawn, to intercept all fertilizing material and hold it.

In many places in the county there are good grass lands, even to the crests of the high hills. Wheat usually does well, perhaps better than corn. Buckwheat, rye, oats, and potatoes make never-failing crops. Cattle, sheep, horses, and swine do well in the county, as a general thing, being raised at very small cost.

Scenery

In various parts of the county the scenery is wild and picturesque. About the river many beautiful views meet the eye. Throughout the county the number of wild and romantic dells, nearly always having cascades and waterfalls, is almost beyond belief. The county cannot be said to be lacking in this particular.

Fruits

Carroll, like Grayson, is a good apple county; but, as to other fruits, it is subject to the same risks, as to constancy of yield, that neighboring counties are.

Grapes could be made a specialty in the county with success.

Bees form an important feature and thrive well.

Fish will soon be numerous in all the streams as soon as the improved varieties recently placed in New River become more numerous. Speckled trout are quite common in the streams, proving the character of the streams for fine fish.

Trade in Cattle, Sheep, Etc.,

Of cattle there are 3,000 head sold annually, of which 2,500 head are stock cattle and 500 head are fat cattle. Many of them go to Danville and Salem for shipment.

There are 100,000 pounds of bacon annually sold at Winston, N.C., about 50,000 pounds to other points, 300 horses annually, and 50 mules. Of sheep there are about 3,000 sold annually, and 25,000 pounds of wool, some of which is consumed at home.

Lines of Transportation

The U.S. Government has had the river examined with a view to its improvement; and the officer in charge has made a report favorable to the scheme.

The Altoona Coal and Iron Co., of Pulaski, are contemplating an extension of their narrow-gauge railway through the county.

The Pittsburgh Southern Railway, if extended, may pass along the western side of the county, following the river.

Also, the New River Railroad, now being constructed between Hinton, Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad and New River Depot, Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad, may be continued up the line of New River, through Carroll, on its way to North Carolina.

Towns and Villages

Hillsville is the county site, nearly in the center of the county. It contains, besides the court-house, churches, hotels, stores, a good county newspaper, smith shops, repair shops, schools, etc.

There are numerous good trading posts in different parts of the county, but there are no places as large as Hillsville elsewhere in the county. Its manufacturing facilities will, no doubt, one day cause a great change in this particular.

Public schools will hereafter fare better in Carroll County; the principal obstacle heretofore has been irregularity in the State appropriation to the schools; hereafter that point is met by stringent enactments of recent legislatures.

While Southwestern Virginia can boast of two or three good counties located on the plateau of the Cumberland Mountains, carrying with them all that reputation for wealth in coal which the name Cumberland usually implies, she can point with equal pride to the counties lying on the Blue Ridge Plateau, with their almost immeasurable wealth of copper ores, magnetic iron ore, gold, and that numerous list of valuable minerals nearly always found in the metamorphic series of rocks.

Grayson County occupies an enviable position in the list of Blue Ridge counties, albeit some of the geographers of the day try to throw the Alleghany Mountains to the South of this unquestionable Blue Ridge system.

Grayson, with its lofty, picturesque mountains, high waterfalls, beautiful rivers and streams, fine grazing and farming lands, ores and minerals and noble forests, is not second to any in the promise of the fine future.

It will be regarded as a fortunate circumstance if even partial justice can be done to Grayson in this work; but this need not be expected, for it is one of those subjects upon which a volume can be exhausted and still the bulk of the story remain untold.

How Bounded

Grayson is separated from Wythe, Smyth, and Washington counties on the north and northwest by the Iron Mountain Range, which is the true southwest prolongation of the north-lying bifurcation of the Blue Ridge, the rocks being identical with those described by Prof. Fontaine as marking the Blue Ridge farther east in Virginia. On the south side id the State boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina; east it is bounded by Carroll County, and west there is a small length bordering with the State of Tennessee, being separated from it by irregular ranges of lofty mountains belonging to the Unaka system. In this series, but not at the corner of the States of Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee, as has been supposed, is the well-known “White Top,” which rears its crest nearly 6,000 feet above sea level.

How Watered

Grayson is well watered by New River and tributaries. It gives rise to no other waters, except perhaps a few of the head springs of Laurel Creek–a tributary of Holston River. It may be considered one of the best watered counties in the State. Not only does New River carry at all seasons sufficent water for even navigable purposes, if improved; but its numerous tributaries, flowing from new failing springs, supply a wealth of fine water for every purpose.

Geological

There is a difference of opinion among geologists as to the exact classification of the rock formation in Grayson. It may be stated here with confidence, that the assertion will be finally sustained, that the southern side of the county is in the gneissoid system, belonging to the Laurentian rocks, and that the northern side of the county is marked by the rocks of the Huronian epoch. The trend, or direction of the outcrop of the strata is between north 45 degrees east and north 65 degrees east. The dip is usally southwardly, or rather, at right angles to the trend. It is apparently monoclinal, that is, the ledges all seem to dip in one direction at greater or less angles, and do not now show the evidence of any folding in the earth’s crust there, other than a close similarity in the appearance of many of the ledges, and an evident recurrence of the same mineral-bearing series. From the latter circumstance it may be inferred that anticlinal folds have occurred, though to make out now, in these partially metamorphosed rocks, any distinct order of stratification or superposition would be impossible. The rocks of Grayson undoubtedly belong to that long period of transition between the unstratified Azoic and that series whcih, more than any other, has the right to be called the first of the fossil-bearing rocks–the Lower Potsdam, or the first of the Cambrian or Lower Silurian. Therefore the mineralogist may not be surprised at finding the following list of minerals, though the existence of some of them is more suspected than positively ascertained as yet:

Garnet, hornblende, kyanite, corundum, and staurotide, all of which are known to exist. Labradorite, magnetite, trap, oligoclase, orthoclase, albite, chloritis, manganesian, epidote, rutile, talc, actinolite, mica (phlogopite, biotite, muscovite), quartz, limestone, tourmaline, beryl, asbestos, steatite, granite of several varieties, including porphyritic grantie, syenite, and such metalliferous ores in quantity as copper and iron pyrites, magnetite (as mentioned), specular ore, bron iron ore, and occasionally arsenic, antimony, silver, lead, and gold, with the existence of nickle strongly suspected.

At least two cross-sections would be desirable; but one will be sufficient to give a very fair idea of the general position of the rocks, the trend being somewhat uniform throughout.

Beginning on the south, about where the Peach Bottom Mountain crosses the Virginia line, we encounter a band of hornblende, slates, steatites, then mica and talc schists, quartzites, etc., which lie between the great Ore Knob Copper Lode and the Peach Bottom Copper Vein; then going north, when in the vicinity of the last-named vein, you encounter talco-mica slates- -a broad band–occasionally interstratified with mica schists; then at about half a mile more, over occasional bands of gneiss, with some manganiferous epidote to a broad ledge soapstone; then over gneissoid strata and a succession of talco-mica slates and schists to the great iron and copper pyrites lode, which makes such extra-ordinary surface showings in Carroll County. Then for six or eight miles, over a succession of talco-mia slates and schists and manganiferous epidotes and slates in almost any order of succession, with some soapstone, we reach the southern limit of the great grantic bands whcih show on so large a scale in Buck Mountain, Point Lookout, and that range of rocks. These are about six miles in thickness, then they begin to give way to rocks whcih are less grantic for the more purely felspathic series, which in turn give way to the hydro-mica slates capping the Huronian system in Iron Mountain; in the last four or five miles crossing that system, which is now yielding gold in interesting quantities farther northeast in Montgomery County.

Iron Ores

The iron ores of greatest importance in Grayson are the magnetites. Brown ores exist toward the southern and southeastern part of the county; but mainly as gossans or hydrated peroxides, resulting from the decomposition of pyrites. The same veins of iron and copper pyrites, which show such immense beds of gossan on the surface in Carroll County, do not present so great a surface showing, in that way, in Grayson. Notwithstanding this fact, there are very flattering indications of brown ores herre and there along the pyrites vein in the neighborhood of New River, and on the Southern Copper Lode in the extreme southeastern part of the county.

Specular ores are found in quite a number of localities in the county. One vein, somewhat less than six feet thick, shows in the south slope of Iron Mountain. Its purity has not yet been determined; but the quantity of the ore must be very great, as the measure, no doubt, extends for a great many miles. There are, occasionally, micaceous looking pieces of specular ore found; but no positive data have, as yet, been gathered relative to the quantity and the various localities in which it shows most prominently.

The magnetic iron ore of this county is found in veins that may be said to lie in the northeastern prolongation of the celebrated beds of Mitchell County, North Carolina. There are three distinct measures running parallel with each other, from a locality on the State line a litte south of the mouth of Wilson, pursuing a direction north 75 degrees east through the Billings land and to the south of Independence, and on to the eastern limit of the county, crossing New River, the last itme, about three and a half miles north of Old Town. Along the course of these very valuable veins they hold very different measures; eleven feet, one of them, at the Billings Mine; another, to the south of that one, reported nearly one hundred feet thick; agian, as you approach the eastern line of the county, near the river, neither of the three exceeds three and a half feet in thickness. It is hardly necessary to go into a more full description of each place at which the ore of these veins is exposed. Any one can take the map and readily find the general locality in which they occur. It might be of interest to descibe fully the showing at Billings, as from it a better idea may be had of the rock material accompanying that vein, which appears here to be the northward vein of this series. The vein at Billings, or the Brush Creek Mines, fourt miles southwest of Independence, is eleven feet thick, having on one side of it pyrites of iron and copper in valuable proportions (perhaps nickel), roof of hornblende, schists, and slates, floore of same, quartz predominating. In this floor is a seven inch vein of spar, apparently fluor spar. The dip here is 60 degrees southeastwardly, and the tends whcih is local at this place is nearly northeast. The vein matter will yield thirty percent of fine ore. Now and then fragments of fine magnetite are found in line to the north of this series, as at Mason’s of Elk Creek, but no developments have as yet proven the thickness of the vein. The prospect of a fine body or ore being found on the river within three or four miles of Old Town is very good. The character of the fragments obtained there–for instance near Cherry Grove– is of the highest order; and, judging from the size of the pieces lying on the surface, the veins must be of good dimentsions. Two forges in the county have been or are now using ores from these veins; one of Little River southwest from Old Town, and the other, perhaps discontinued now, on New River, eight miles southwest from Independence. Running along with this series of veins, in places, is a seam of specular ore, not yet found over eight inches thick.

Iron Pyrites

It would be interesting to know the number of ledges of rock, besides well- recognized veins and lodes in Grayson, which are more or less heavily impregnated with pyrites. That some of the pyritous bearing subjects carry gold in good quantity, and now and then nickel, there can be but little doubt.

The strictly iron pyrites, however, is a largely preponderating constituent in three of the great metalliferous measures of the county, namely, the Northern Copper Lode, the Peach Bottom Copper Lode, and the Southern or Ore Knob Lode, which cuts into the extreme southeastern corner of the county.

The Northern (or Iron Lode) is from nine to fifteen feet thick, and shows, as at Hampton’s, a pyrotite and copper pyrites combined; in some parts of the vein givinig an average of five percent of copper, the rest being iron and sulphur having the appearance of holding nickel.

The course of this lode is, for a part of its way, through Grayson, northeast. Coming into the county, at a point a mile or two southwest of Dowten’s [sic] Ford, it continues on by Hampton’s close to the mouth of Little River, thence on by a point somewhat more than a mile north of Old Town, in the direction of the great outburst in Carroll County, about fifteen miles length in Grayson. That this sulphureted vein would become an important commercial feature in the county, in case of cheap modes of transportation, there can be no doubt. The openings made at Hampton’s and other places amply prove it continuity and size. Along it there is not so much gossan as on the Southern Lode.

The Peach Bottom Lode is charged, for the most part, with copper pyrites only, and its iron pyrites is really too small in amount to require mention.

The Southern Lode seems altogether, in places, to be composed of iron pyrites when you get down low enough below the decomposed ores to strike it. This lode being sometimes forty feet thick, the quantity of ore in it may be imagined.

There are localities in which pyrites is sometimes a large consitutent of the rocks–on Elk Creek, Fox Creek, Wilson Creek, and on the streams in the western part of the county in the slopes of the Balsam and White Top Mountains. This is the range of ores which is most likely to yield gold in paying quantities.

Manganese

Manganese is a large consitutent in many of the rocks, but is not developed in any distinct veins in sufficient quantities to pay for mining.

Lead

Lead is found interjected wth the copper ore in the Peach Bottom Lode, and may be valuable on account of the silver it is known to carry.

It is also known to exist in rock having the appearance of trap, which trends trough about two and a half miles south of Elk Creek Post Office.

It is highly probable, if this were followed up, it would led to something valuable.

Copper

This is an unsatisfactory subject to treat, so little is known of the great veins which hold it–at any depth.

Copper pyrites can be detected in a great many of the ledges of rock in the county; but the probability is that it is likely to be found in paying quantities in the Northern Lode passing Hampton’s, the Peach Bottom, or Middle Lode, the Southern Lode, and in one of the sides of the Brush Creek or Bilings Vein.

In the first or Northern Lode it has already been found to yield, in some places, and average of five percent of copper, though this may not hold as a rule. In the Peach Bottom Lode, in this county, no developments of any consequence have, as yet, been made; and it might be premature to assign to it the same character it has at the Peach Bottom Mine in Alleghany County, N.C. On the Southern or Ore Knob Lode in Grayson, it has been inferred, from the live character of the gossan, that there must be a good percentage of copper below.

Gold

So important a statement as that there are immense quantities of the precious yellow metal in the county should no doubt, be made with a great deal of caution; yet such is the opinion advanced here, after an investigation of some length.

That the gold exists in the parent rock in sufficient quantities to pay for extraction is rather a premature statement to make; but that the disintegration of these Huronian rocks has, through the ages, left paying quantities in the derbris and drift among the streams, is confidently believed. The region of Elk Creek participates in this distribution. In all likelihood a line parallel with the course of Iron Mountain, about the distance from that mountain that Elk Creek Post Office is, clear through the county, would be in a gold bearing series. The gold, it may be submitted, results from the decompositon of a pyritous quartz and felspathic band, which seem to follow this line, showing with some distinctness, also on the bank of New River, a few miles above the old Grayson Sulphur Springs on the line between Grayson and Carroll.

Elk Creek, however, in the beautiful valley that looks, in spring time, like a jewel from heaven, on the north side of Point Lookout, is the district most likely to pay the intelligent prospector.

The question may well be asked, if this be true, why should so valuable a metal have lain there so long without being found out long ere this? The same might be said with equal propriety of the Brush Creek gold belt in Montgomery, which the miner, only the other day, never even so much as suspected to contain gold. Now it is attracting universal attention.

Silver

Silver has been found by close analysis to exist in the ores of the Peach Bottom Lode; in what quantities, however, it has not been determined. Also, in the Northern Copper and Iron Pyrites Lode one chemist found it. It is highly probable that deep mining only on these veins will find it in paying quantities.

Then we may also hope that these veins, following the habit of similar ones in Cornwell, will also yield tin.

Limestone

Only one ledge of limestone is known to show in the county. That crosses the turnpike leading from the Mouth of Wilson to Marion. It is in sufficient quantities to be highly valuable.

Felspar

There are apparently all the varieties of felspar in this county, the scientific names for which are orthoclase, oligoclase, and albite, comprising the important kinds, such as labradorite, etc. Orthoclase, which was distinctly the potash variety, is quite abundant, sometimes in measures eight feet thick, as at Elk Creek, in several places on the road from Blue Springs Gap to Independence, and at many other points east and west. From the decomposition of this rock, which contains about 14 pounds of potash to the 100 pounds of rock, and other felspathic varieties, Elk Creek owes the exceeding fertility of its soil.

From these ledges of pure felspar a fertilizer may yet be devised which, if used in connection with the gypsum from the inexhaustibe beds in Smyth County, will render it possible at a very moderate expense to bring up worn- out or unproductive lands to a high state of fertility.

Granite and Syenite

Granite of every variety is found in Point Lookout and Buck Mountains. It may also be found in the spurs of the Balsam and White Top Mountains, and again far to the east near the eastern side of the county; but its positions of the greatest purity and compactness seems to be Point Lookout and Buck Mountains, and their vicinity, evenb the black and white being there, the porphyritic, and that which graduates into the syenitic, finally showing true syenite. As a building or ornamental stone there are great masses of it which could not well be excelled.

Asbestos

This mineral exists in some quantity along a belt just south of the Northern Copper Lode. It has been found in handsome specimens on Little River and below Hampton Mine. It is reported also from Black’s, in the western section of the county, not far from Grant.

Soapstone

There are great masses of good soapstone following the range north of Peach Bottom Mountains, extending for many miles through the county; also in beds still further north. It will be found useful in furnace lining and for building purposes.

Timber

There is a great variety of fine trees in Grayson. White pine is abundant in the south spurs of Iron Mountain, Balsam Mountain, and White Top and points along the river. White oak, chestnut oak, chestnut, etc., are very plentiful. Timber is so abundant in nearly every part of the county that some easy means of getting it out would insure a bountiful supply of very cheap charcoal to the furnace men for years to come.

Water Power

On account of the invariable flow, at all seasons, of a large number of fine streams, over rapidly descending beds, this county must be regarded as having fully as much water power as any in the State. Including the river, which here and there has sufficient fall, any force, from 1,000 cubic feet per second down to 10, can be had with but little outlay–Little River, Elk Creek, Wilson Creek, Fox Creek, Peach Bottom Creek, Bridle, the upper ends of Little and Big Helton Creeks, Grassy Creek, Brush Creek, Knob Fork, and two or three others in different parts of the county. It would be idle, as well as unfair, to institute a comparison between, or to attempt a description of, particular locations. All of these creeks afford excellent powers every mile or two for all the purposes of milling and manufacturing, which, taken in connection with the constancy of the streams, renders the county, in this respect, the superior of nearly all the counties in the State.

Manufactures

There are few manufactories in the county, except a carding machine or two, and the Little River Forge, now in operation. There are the usual grist and saw-mills in every neighborhood; but, for want of facilities of transportation, there has been no inducement to build any extensive factories of any kind, though the people are sufficiently enterprising.

Agriculture

The different parts of the county are very diverse in their agricultural features. Whereever the granitic, or more felspathic series predominates, the soil seems stronger and more capable in every respect. Where the streaks of manganiferous epidote and the more easily decomposed talco- mica slates are, there you find an unsatisfactory soil; but happily, as to the great body of the lands, the latter are in the smallest proportion. It is plain to be seen that the soil throughout is the results of the decomposition of the rocks in each locality; wherever the rocks have been chiefly composed of alumina (or clay material), silica, and potash, soda or lime, there are the finest soils. Elk Creek is a good example of this. Nowhere in Virginia can a more beautiful scene be found than Elk Creek Valley affords, looked at from any of its matchless character of the material composing its soil. With but little attention, here and there, in the steep portions, these lands would never lose their fertiliity. On the contrary, they ought to increase in productive capacity each succeeding year.

But Elk Creek is not the only beautiful gem in Grayson. The hills often steep, are crowned with that growth to the summits which indicates the strength of the soil. Frequently upon the tops of ridges nearly 4,000 feet above sea level some of the finest corn-fields are to be seen. Beginning on the Upper Heltons, Grassy Creek, and coming over each succeeding creek and ridge until you reach the eastern limits of the county, there are thousands of acres of land, at from $5 to $15 per acre, which would prove far more productive than twice the same quantity in localities farther east. There is nothing raised in this latitute which these lands are not capable or producing in abundance.

Scenery

A valuable collection of fine views could be obtained in this county. Whether landscape scenery, such as that presented by the incomparable scope along Elk Creek, or extended views from high mountains, or the fine picutres made up by waterfalls over 100 feet high in mountain dells strewn with massive rocks, all the same could the lover of the beautiful nature find every sense gratified. The river, as it winds back and forth between the high hills, offers many lovely views. There are few localities in the county that cannot produce some well-known point of interest in the line of scenery. Many of them if painted and exhibited would command the admiration of the most experienced and critical observers.

Fruits

The apples of Grayson have commanded for years a very wide fame in the surrounding country for their flavor and excellence.

While the apple seems to be in its native home here, the peach, quince, pear, cherry, and plum are regarded as sure to make a crop each year in Grayson as in any other locality.

Grape culture could be carried to high perfection in the county, judging from the abundance of native varieties. There has been but little effort made to improve the old or to introduce new varities. Diseases of any kind seem never to have attack the grape in Grayson. No doubt the soil, and the large area of southern exposures, would make grape culture very successful if native varieties were used.

Bee culture could be brought to a high state of perfection on account of the large number of flowering plants and trees, and the abundance of moist places for the bees to use in the hollows.

Fish culture, after the county is rendered more accessible by railways, will become an important feature, not only for mere sporting purposes, but from an economic point of view. The streams are peculiarly well adapted to every species of game fish. The mountain trout is now very common in nearly all the streams, and in some of them affords excellent sport. The New River catfish reaches its highest perfection in this county. Unlike his namesake in the western waters, he is here regarded fully equal ot the best table fish in excellency of flavor and all other good points.

Trade in Cattle, Sheep, Wheat, Corn and Tobacco

The possible trade of this county in all the staples would be difficult to approximate under the favorable conditions of cheap and abundant transportation. Besides being naturally a good cattle and farming county, Grayson is capable of making good tobacco. The record of the number of cattle and sheep now annually sold is no just estimate of her capacity; for, with the stimulus resulting from increased means of transportation, without clearing any more land even, the county would increase its revenues from all classes of produce fully tenfold, if not more.

There has been great improvement of late years in cattle and sheep. Elk Creek and Bridle Creek seem to have led off in this direction. Shorthorns in cattle and Cotswold and Shropshire-downs in sheep, seem to be the favorites.

The county sends about 1,100 cattle every year, which, directly or indirectly, make their way to European markents, and her total sale of:

Cattle annually is about 3,800 head.
Sheep annually is about 4,000 head.
Wool, mostly used up at home, about 9,000 pounds.

The quantity of wheat, corn, and tobacco now being exported is scarcely worthy of notice.

Grayson sells anually a large quantity of bacon; but is now doing but little with horses, except improving the stock in some quarters.

Towns and Villages

The county site is Independence, situated somewhat east of the center of the county. It has the usual number of hotels, churches, stores, saddleries, smith-shops, etc. The Grayson Clipper, a progressive weekly newspaper is published there. Old Town, once the county site before the county was divided, near the Carroll County line. It is about one mile south of New River, and is the center of a good trading and mining region. There are stores, churches, a hotel, and post-office there. Mouth of Wilson, Elk Creek, Bridle Creek, Greer’s, Carsonville, and one or two other points are good trading posts, and now anually collect and send off, besides other produce, a large tonnage of medicinal herbs, roots, etc.

The public schools are being better protected by the State government, and are gaining greatly in the estimation of the people.

It would ill become any one to attempt to give a thorough resume of the mineral resources of any part of North Carolina, after that work had once been done by such men as Kerr, Hunt, and Genth; but, as the counties of Ashe, Alleghany and Watauga [sic] are directly in a continuation of the great and massive belts which pass through Floyd, Carroll, and Grayson in Virginia, a feeble attempt to show this continuation may well be excused.

Ashe County seems to exemplify all of the best that may be said with respect to the series of rocks of which it is composed, besides presenting a rich and charming scenery of unsurpassed loveliness in its lofty lone mountains and romantic gorges. Lying as it does at the head of nearly all the great rivers that flow in every direction from it, its elevation gives it a summer climate unequaled for health, to which crystal freestone water from thousands of never-failing springs lends a security far beyond the conception of any one who has never felt its influence.

Ashe lies in the plateau of the Blue Ridge and Unaka Ranges, having one on the south and southeast boundary, and the other on the northern and western sides, having Grayson, Va., on the north, Alleghany, N.C., on the east, Wilkes and Watauga, N.C. on the south, and Johnson County, Tenn. on the west.

How Watered

The county is excellently well watered by the North and South Forks of New River, which yield a water power for every mile of their course of great reliability, and of any desirable volume.

Geological

To use distinctions which are more or less arbitrary, Ashe shows the rocks of the Laurentian and Huronian epochs, sometimes placed under the general appellation of the metamorphic series.

They include granite, gneiss, syenite, quartz, hornblende, mica and talc, chlorite, mica and talc schists and slates, gray soapstone, epidote, felspars of all varieties, trap, zeolites, actinolite, and many others, the lithology of which would be entirely obscure to the general reader. Pure granite is rare in the county; but, toward the southern side principally, there are broad bands of gneiss, as those showing about Ore Knob. As you go north of this there are extraordinary bands of hornblende, followed by mica and talc slates, soap stones, epidote, etc., in recurring series, all pursuing a course nearly north 70 degrees east and south seventy degrees west, with a dip varying between 30 degrees southwardly on the north side to the perpendicular toward the south side of the county. In the gneissoid system, nearer the Blue Ridge, are the copper veins in which Ore Knob and Copper Knob are situated; while, following the hornblendic series near the northern middle part of the county, are the copper veins in which Elk Knob Mine and Phoenix copper ores are situated. toward the northern side, on and near the North Fork of New River, are the great bands of magnetic ore in the epidotic series in part, and in the gneissic and hornblendic running along with it and just south of it.

Copper

The copper range in Ashe is admittedly one of the best and most reliable in the world. The Ore Knob Mine has sufficiently demonstrated this point, the quantity of cement copper and ingot produced since 1872 not being far from 25,000,000 pounds; last year having shipped 2,436,392 pounds of ingot copper. The energetic and efficient management there having erected, in a surprisingly short space of time, a singularly efficient and entirely satisfactory plant, including machinery and furnaces, the capable mine soon began and continued to yield returns that have fallen at only rare intervals below the expectation resulting from the thoroughly practical tests of the mangement, sustained by the no less excellent investigations of Dr. Hunt.

This mine lies in what is familiarly known in Virginia as the Southern Lode, its continuation in Virginia showing excellent copper ore at the Toncray Mine in Floyd County, Va., and immense quantities of gossan near Sparta. Again to the southwest of Ore Knob, at one or two points, as Mulatto Mountain, this lode shows strong surface indications. Some persons are rather inclined to the belief that Copper Knob, or Gap Creek Mines, is also in this lode; but a creful examination proves it to lie south of the Ore Knob Lode.

This vein or lode, as it shows at Ore Knob is declared by Kerr to be the most remarkable of the many copper veins showing in North Carolina. He says:

That though it was opened before the war, it was not until it fell into the hands of the present owners, in 1871, that it began to show its real character.

Prof. Kerr then goes on to speak of the number of shafts then sunk at the time of his visit, etc. Not there are eight shafts over a length of about 800 feet, the principal of which are the Engine Shaft on the crest of the hill, and Nos. 2 and 3 south. The mine has been carried to a depth of 350 feet. Prof. Kerr goes on to say:

Dr. Hunt gave the gossan yield at 14 to 22 per cent of copper, and the sulphurets or iron and copper were last winter yielding an ore which assayed fully as much. An inspection of the sketch and section on the adjacent pages may perhaps lead to a better understanding of the immense amount of work done at this mine. The nearest furnace showing in the sketch is a reducing furnace, the next one (near the end of the railway) is a reducing furnace, and also holds the refining furnace. The large building at the upper end of the railway is the ore-house, holding the crushing machinery, etc., while beyond it is the sky- house, which is erected over the engine shaft.

The operations about this mine for the last nine years have had the effect of creating an immense business throughout that region on a paying basis. The amount of money annually put in circulation for labor and supplies must be very great.

Copper, and Gold, and Silver

The ores taken in Mulatto Mountain, from what has been commonly accepted as the southwestern continuation of the Ore Knob Lode, yield an average as follows: Copper, 3 per cent; gold $2.05 per ton; silver $2.80 per ton. These ores were taken from a vein 5« feet thick; but it is barely possible that this vein lies about a half mile to the north of a point where the Ore Knob Vein should be, if continued. Mulatto Mountain is ten miles southwest from Ore Knob.

Copper Knob Mine, situated in the Blue Ridge, near the Ashe-Watauga line, was found, upon a close examination, to agree very fully with Kerr’s description, which is as follows:

The ore, analyzed by Mr. Manross, gave “gold 1 3/4 ounces and silver, 18 ounces per ton of mixed rock and ore.” Handsome specimens of purple copper ore from the center of the vein, showing much free gold to the eye, yielded about $2600 in gold to the ton.

The next great series of copper deposits in Ashe lies four miles north of, and nearly parallel with the Ore Knob Lode, about the middle of the county. This line of ores is in the southwestern continuation of the Peach Bottom Lode; chiefly shows in a decomposing micaceous gneiss, and toward Elk Knob in hornblendic strata.

Near Jefferson, at Weaver’s, and at Foster’s, near Phoenix Mountain, there are fissure veins cutting the strata. They are accompanied with quartz, and often show a thickness of nine feet. The average yield of these veins is very hard to determine from present workings, but much of the mass is very pure sulphuret of copper. Occasionally, copper glance is found.

Elk Knob Copper Vein, really in Watauga County, seems to be nearly at a point where the Peach Bottom continued that way would strike, but is is in an entirely different kind of rock from Peach Bottom Vein. Elk Knob Vein has been very well exposed by the owners in several places, and is at different points variable in thickness; in one deep ravine being seven feet, and, at another point sixteen feet thick. The vein seems to be largely composed of mundic; but yields fine specimens of gray copper ore and copper pyrites, all mixed with a low percentage of gold and silver.

This vein is undoubtedly a valuable copper vein, but has been badly prospected. If due regard had been observed as to the carbonate of copper showing in the gossan at different points, and the shafts sunk accordingly, much more satisfactory results would have been achieved. As it is, the work was done wherever the vein was most accessible, and, unfortunately, the poorer alternations in the vein were thus exposed. There are extraordinary surface indications along this vein for some miles in length- -mostly gossan or oxidized ore.

Then, again, on the north side of Phoenix Mountain, there are evidences of the southwest continuation of what is known in Virginia as the Northern, or Hampton Copper Lode. No developments of consequence have ever been made on it in Ashe; although, now and then, gossan may be detected along it in considerable quantities.

There are other places in the county where copper ores have been found, sometimes in flattering quantities, as at Witherspoons, the Old Meat Camp Mine, etc.; but the thickness of the veins has generally not been sufficient to warrant much outlay.

Iron Ore

The iron ore in Ashe of greatest value is found in the magnetic bands on, and north of, the North Fork of New River. At Ballou’s, on North Fork, the great magnetic vein was found to be massive ore, accompanies with hornblende, talc, mica, and occasionally, tremolite-trap and quartz as insoluble constituents, in the proportion of nearly 20 per cent of the vein, at a point where the vein is 30 feet thick; trend, north 55 degrees east. Just south of this vein, about 250 yards, is another vein of the same ore separated from the first vein by a material which is mainly hornblende schists, mica slate, and schist and gneiss, general trend being south 55 degrees west. This vein is 5 feet thick; while the larger, though for 300 feet 30 feet thick, in generally not over 15 feet–sometimes 12. These veins are continuous, either way, for many miles. These ores contain about 0.026 of phosphorus, and no titanium, by John Fulton’s analysis.

Then again, in the gneiss, etc., of Helton and Horse Creeks, are massive ores, coarse, granular, and highly magnetic.

Professor Kerr says, on Helton Creek, six or eight miles east of the Horse Creek ores, “are still larger deposits of very pure magnetic ore which has been long used in the forges of the neighborhood. The ore is a close grained and very pure magnetite, one of the beds of which is reported to be eighteen feet in thickness, and another nine feet.”

Toward the junction of the North and South Forks of New River, in the northeastern prolongation of the Ballou veins, a forge has been running for some time, making a bar-iron of the highest quality.

Limonites, of great purity, are common in the gossans of the different copper veins. Ore Knob, Elk Knob, and the northside of Phoenix Mountain show very considerable deposits. The south flanks fo the Balsam and White Top Mountains show specular ores, but the quantity is not easily ascertainable.

Mica

Large-sized mica is found abundantly in Ashe, in a line of dikes composed of felspar, quartz, and mica, pursuing a course through the central part of the county, northeast and southwest, at an angle with the strike of the rocks. The largest developments yet made are at the Little Mine on the South Fork of New River, at Harden’s, and at places on the head of Three Top Creek. There are also large pieces of mica reported from the south spurs of Balsam Mountain and White Top. The two veins at the Little Mine are respectively 30 and 18 feet thick, and are apparent for about one eighth of a mile, though there is no doubt of their continuation for miles either way.

Kaolin

Fine kaolin, resulting from the decomposition of albite in these mica veins is very plentiful.

Felspar–Very pure felspars exist in large quantities in the dikes holding large mica.

Asbestos is found in a line of rocks three miles north of Jefferson, the county site, but the quantity is not great. In the south spurs of White Top Mountain, near Black’s, it is said to be in quantity and of good quality.

Talc

A nearly pure talc or statite is found in many section of the county, but that found in the east face of Elk Ridge is preferred at Ore Knob Copper Mine for furnace lining. It is easily sawn into blocks of any desirable size.

Timber and Charcoal

The timber of the county is of every conceivable variety known to the latitude, and in forests of unlimited extent. Charcoal, except in the immediate neighborhood of the copper furnaces, could be had in great abundance for years to come at a merely nominal figure.

The lines of transportation through Ashe, as to railways are only as yet projected. Possibly the Statesville and Virginia Railroad may, at some early day, be built, passing near Ore Knob; and there may be others of which the writer knows nothing.

This county is much like Ashe in its geological features; lying just east of Ashe, it holds the northeastern continuation of its copper veins.

The Peach Bottom Copper Lode shows to best advantage at Peach Bottom Copper Mine and Elk Creek in this county. It now shows about nine feet of ore in walls of a highly micaceous gneiss, or mica slate, sometimes talcose. The ore is usually copper pyrites; occasionally purple copper ore, with a considerable admixture of galenite. It is claimed for this mine that it will yield largely, also, in nickel, antimony, and arsenic. This vein has a dip southwardly approaching the perpendicular, and a strike east of northeast. It is continuous for miles. Has been actively developed to a depth of over 150 feet within the last year.

On the Ore Knob, or Southern Lode, south of Peach Bottom Mountain, are the great deposits of gossan or limonite, hundreds of feet in extent. They are close to Sparta, the county site.

Nearer the northeastern border of the county are valuable deposits of asbestos.

Augusta County, 1738, from Orange County. Comprising all west of the county of Frederick and west of the Blue Ridge. This territory, of which nearly all of the counties of Southwest Virginia are now composed, and our southwestern counties, made a part of the territory alluded to by Gen. Washington, when he spoke of “the mountains of West Augusta.”

Fincastle was formed in 1772 from Botetourt, and was extinguished in 1776 by the formation of Washington, Montgomery, and Kentucky Counties.

Montgomery, 1776 from Fincastle County.

Wythe, 1790 from Motgomery

Grayson, 1793 from Wythe.

Washington, 1776 from Fincastle County.

Russell, 1786 from Washington County.

Lee, 1792 from Russell County.

Tazewell, 1799, from Russell and Wythe.

Giles, 1806 from Monroe and Tazewell.

Smyth, 1831 from Washington and Wythe.

Floyd, 1831 from Montgomery.

Carroll, named after Charles Carroll of Carrollton, 1842, from eastern part of Grayson.

Wise, 1855, from Lee, Scott and Russell.

Buchanan, 1858 from Tazewell and Russell.

Bland, 1861 from Wythe, Tazewell and Giles

Dickenson, 1880 from Buchanan and Wise

Census Items

Population of the counties by the census of 1880 compared with that of 1870, from information kindly supplied by Gen. Walker, Superintendent of Census:

County	1880	1870
Montgomery	16,693	12,556
Pulaski	8,750	6,538
Wythe	14,318	11,611
Smyth	12,159	8.898
Washington	25,203	16,816
Giles	8,794	5,900
Bland	5,004	4,100
Tazewell	12,861	10,791
Russell	13,906	11,103
Scott	17,233	13,036
Lee	15,116	14,100
Wise	7,772	4,785
Buchanan	5,694	3,775
Floyd	13,255	12,000
Carroll	13,323	9.147
Grayson	13,068	9,597