“Wherever we went we found the ‘rock hunters’ had been ahead of us, and a halt by the wayside at noon would generally bring us to some denizen of the neighborhood who would say ‘Good mornin’, gentlemen; after rocks?’ And then would produce from his pockets some specimens, which he was ‘mighty certain he did’nt know the name of.’ Many a farmer had caught the then prevalent mica fever, and some had really found deposits of that valuable mineral which were worth thousands of dollars. There is no danger of over-estimating the mineral wealth of this mountain country; it is unbounded. There are stores of gold, silver, iron, copper, zinc, corundum, coal, alum, copperas, barytes, and marl, which seem limitless. There are fine marble and limestone quarries, whose value was unsuspected, until the railroad pioneer unearthed it. The limestone belt of Cherokee county contains stores of marble, iron, and gold; Jackson county possesses a vast copper belt, and the iron beds of the Yellow mountains are attracting much notice. The two most remarkable gold regions are in Cherokee and Jackson counties. The valley river sands have been made in former times to yield handsomely, and now and then good washings have been found along its tributaries. The gold is found in various and superficial deposits in the same body of slates which carries limestone and iron. Before the war liberal arrangements had been made for mining in Cherokee, but since the struggle the works remain incomplete. It is supposed that the gold belt continues southward across the country, as other mines are found in the edge of Georgia. The gold in Jackson county is obtained from washings along the southern slopes of the Blue Ridge, near the mountains known as ‘Hogback’ and ‘Chimney Top,’ and Georgetown creek, one of the head streams of Toxaway, yielded several thousand dollars a few years ago. In this wild country, where the passes of the Blue Ridge rise precipitously eight hundred and a thousand feet, there lie great stores of gold. Overman, the metallurgist, unhesitatingly declares that he believes a second California lies hidden in these rocky walls. The monarch mountain ‘Whiteside’ is also said to be rich in gold.”