The largest quantities of gold found in the eastern United States were found in the Georgia Gold Belt, which extends from eastern Alabama to Rabun County, Georgia. The biggest concentration of gold was found in White, Lumpkin, and northern Cherokee counties in Georgia. The gold in the Georgia Gold Belt was close to 24 karat (100%) purity. Most of the gold was found in eroded rock (saprolite) and mixed in with quartz.
The discovery of gold in the Georgia Gold Belt in 1828 led to the Georgia Gold Rush. The historic cities of Auraria and Dahlonega were the primary beneficiaries of the gold discovery, and a branch mint of the United States Mint was operated in Dahlonega until 1861. The Georgia Gold Belt is part of a zone of gold deposits in the southeast United States that runs from Alabama to Virginia. Smaller gold deposits can be found further north.
Famous quotes containing the words georgia, gold and/or belt:
“Being a Georgia author is a rather specious dignity, on the same order as, for the pig, being a Talmadge ham.”
—Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964)
“We are educated in the grossest ignorance, and no art omitted to stifle our natural reason; if some few get above their nurses’ instructions, our knowledge must rest concealed and be as useless to the world as gold in the mine.”
—Mary Wortley, Lady Montagu (1689–1762)
“Your work is to keep cranking the flywheel that turns the gears that spin the belt in the engine of belief that keeps you and your desk in midair.”
—Annie Dillard (b. 1945)