total
product has been very considerable; but, strange as it may seem, many
of the discarded gold-washings of a century ago are now yielding more
to the owner of the land for the obscure and long unknown monazite
sands than for the gold originally obtained with them. In regard to
this latest development, extended mining has recently shown that the
hillsides, from which the monazite sands in the " branches " and
streams originally came, contain an endless store of these rare
minerals, and that when the ancient brook-washings are exhausted, the
hillsides can be resorted to for a century to come. It is in the search
for this mineral that most of the small and beautiful garnets, rutiles,
sapphires, epidotes, and other gems have lately been found.
Between
the gold-mining of earlier times and the more recent and varied
developments, came the terrible years of the " war between the States."
When that was past, brave and patriotic men like the late Gen. Thomas
L. Clingman, afterwards United States Senator, turned their attention
to developing the natural resources of their State and retrieving in
every way possible the ruin and devastation that had swept over the
South. Then commenced a period of exploration and discovery in the
mineral and gem treasures of North Carolina that has progressed and
expanded to a wonderful extent. It began with the corundum industry and
the mica mines. The presence of the former mineral had been known for
some }rears before the war, but it had not been developed.
The first notice of its occurrence in the State was in 1846, by Prof.
C. D. Smith, but with no particulars as to the locality. About 1850
General Clingman announced it from Madison County; and in 1852, Prof.
E. T. Brumby, of the College of South Carolina, collected and labelled
specimens from Clubb Mountain, in Lincoln County, and placed them in
the College cabinet at Columbia, S. C. In the next year Professor
Ebenezer Emmons, of the University of North Carolina, in a report on
the midland counties of the State, mentioned a discovery of corundum by
Dr. C. L. Hunter, in Gaston County. Little or nothing was done in
regard to it, however, until immediately after the war, in 1865, when
the Rev. C. D. Smith, of Franklin, Macon County, who had been an
assistant to Prof. Ebenezer Emmons on the Geological Survey of the
State, identified specimens that were brought to him, visited the spot
whence they came, and discovered a number of important localities. In
the next 5 years a great amount of exploration was done, mines were
opened, and an important and enduring industry was called into being.
Among those most active in this field of study and progress, besides
Mr. Smith and General Clingman, were the able State Geologist, Prof.
Washington C. Kerr, the enthusiastic and indefatigable collector, Mr.
J. Adlai D. Stephenson, of Statesville, and
