_Mineral Products._--Georgia was perhaps the El Dorado of which the Spaniards who invaded Florida were in search. Before the gold discovery in California, the “placers” of Northern Georgia were profitably worked for many years; but since 1852 their produce has almost wholly ceased. The gold-bearing region is comprised in the counties of Lumpkin, Habersham, Forsyth, and Hall,--the precious metal being found in the alluvial deposits of the streams, and also intermixed with the quartz rock of the hills. A branch mint was established by the Government at Dahlonega, the shire town of Lumpkin county. In 1853 it coined gold bullion of nearly half a million dollars’ value; but, as in California, the placers, or surface deposits, have become exhausted. Besides this precious metal, Georgia contains, mainly in N. E. or Cherokee Georgia, coal and fossiliferous iron ore distributed along the ridges between the Tennessee and Alabama border. The Cohutta mountains contain copper, and also silver and lead ores. Iron ore, manganese, slate, baryta, and brown hæmatite are found on the western declivity of this range. Between the Cohutta mountains and the Blue Ridge is a vein of marble, and adjacent to it are the gold-bearing schists, which reappear on the south side of the Blue Ridge. Other minerals are granite, gypsum, limestone, sienite, marl, burrstone, soapstone, asbestos, shales, tripoli, fluor-spar, kaolin, porcelain clay, arragonite, tourmaline, emerald, carnelian, ruby, opal, calcedony, agate, amethyst, jasper, garnets, schorl, zircon, rose-quartz, beryl, and even diamonds. _Population._--The latest official census of Georgia (1870) gives a population of 1,184,709 souls, 638,926 being white and 545,142, or nearly one-half, black. This population is distributed among 136 counties, which include 8 cities and 134 incorporated towns. Georgia, which ranks tenth in area, is the twelfth of the Union in respect to population. Though showing an increase of 127,423 persons in the previous decade, which embraced the period of the war with the North, she has fallen behind one in her rank; but indications of prosperity in her agricultural and manufacturing interests warrant the belief that Georgia will show a marked gain in 1880. A large proportion of this anticipated increase may be confidently assigned to the northern section of the State, though the middle section is at present most thickly settled.