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CHAPTER III.
CORUNDUM GEMS.1
While diamonds and gold are found in the Piedmont country east of the mountains, North Carolina's chief corundum rocks are in Madison, Buncombe, Haywood, Jackson, Macon, and Clay counties, where numerous occurrences are known. A second and a third line of localities are recognized, but they are of slight importance. There are occurrences of corundum, however, east of the mountains, in the counties of Gaston, Lincoln, Burke, Iredell, Guilford, and Forsyth. The late Prof. John A. Humphreys called attention to some of these in 18—, in his paper No. 12 of " Natural History Notes on Western North Carolina," and suggested their possible importance" in comparison with those farther west. Some of the earliest specimens, also, were collected in Gaston and Lincoln counties, as will be noted further on. But the main corundum region is beyond the Blue Eidge, where it forms a belt or zone of large extent, stretching along the whole course of the Southern Appalachians. The principal corundum gems are the ruby, sapphire, and oriental emerald.
According to Dr. Thomas M. Chatard,2 of the United States Geological Survey, the corundum region extends from the Virginia line through the western part of South Carolina, and across Georgia as far as Dudleyville, Ala. Its greatest width is estimated to be about 100 miles. This belt has sometimes been called the chrysolite or chromiferous series, owing to the presene of chrysolite containing chromite, from the former of which corundum was believed, by certain authorities, to have been derived by alteration.3 In this decomposed and altered chrysolite (dunite) throughout the Southern States, corundum is found in place; and the earlier writers on the subject, including such eminent authorities as Dr. J. Lawrence Smith and Prof. Charles U. Shepard," believed it to be confined to the serpentinous rocks of this belt, which represent largely an al-
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