From beneath the eastern aspect of the mountains of Alabama, a broad belt
of metamorphic rocks bursts forth, and trends to the north-eastward,
following the mountain ranges in almost parallel lines through the States
of Georgia, South and North Carolina, and disappearing in Virginia beneath
the waters of the Potomac. These lands of decomposed mica and talcose
schists contain throughout their broad extent particles of gold; and some
of the narrow and circumscribed fields are unsurpassed in their
undeveloped richness by any of the known gold fields of similar extent in
the world. These auriferous soils, owned or controlled by the slaveholder,
have yielded, by the superficial scratchings and washings of the slave and
the poor white, during the period since the discovery of the precious
metal, about forty millions of dollars. There are not less than one
hundred millions more within the reach and grasp of skilled and determined
labor.
Along beside, and traversing through and through these golden rocks and
sands, occur immense bands of itacolumite, known, from its flexibility, as
the elastic sandstone. They stretch from Alabama to the interior of North
Carolina, bursting forth now as great flexible bands of stone, and then
bulging out as entire mountains. This singular formation is the same that
has been recognized in Brazil, Ural Mountains, and Hindostan, as the
matrix of the diamond; and here, nearly one hundred of the precious gems
of fine water have been picked up from the earth, from time to time, by
the careless observer.