Bast Mine, Dahlonega, Lumpkin County, Georgia, USAi

Regional Level Types
Bast Mine	Mine
Dahlonega	Town
Lumpkin County	County
Georgia	State
USA	Country

Looking southeast from the neighborhood of the public square in Dahlonega, the attention is arrested by a large open cut, running along the north side of Findley Ridge, near its top. This cut is on the east side of lot 1,035, 12th district, its east end stopping abruptly, about the middle of the north and south lot-line, between this and the Findley mine lot, No. 1,048. This cut constitutes what is known as the Bast mine, named for Mr. Emanuel Bast, of Ashland, Penn., one of it former owners and operators. The cut is 650 feet long by about 60 feet wide. Its south wall is about fifty feet high, and its north wall, about twenty feet, in the present condition of the cut; though, in places, the original bottom is said to be covered, by about twenty feet of debris. Along its longitudinal axis, the cut has a direction, N. 76° E., approximately the trend of the belts. In fact, the cut has been made by excavating the yellow belt, nearly to the point, where the saprolitic condition gives place to the unaltered schist. Still, a portion of the yellow saprolite remains in place, dipping under the large dike, and averaging, probably, fifteen feet thick. The north wall, in the west end of the cut, presents an excellent exposure of the hornblende-schist, the most of it, in an almost completely altered condition, but the remainder, showing all stages of alteration. About midway of the north wall of the cut, a drain was cut through the hard, unaltered hornblende-schist, through which the ore could be flooded to the mill. The large dump-pile, resulting, furnishes, in abundance, all the variations of this rock, from the holocrystalline to the aphanitic schist.

Third in the series of these belts, as they lie in this cut, is a belt of the black slates, which forms the south wall of the cut, and dips under the belt of yellow schists. The strike of these slates, taken in the east end of the cut, was N. 65° W., and their dip 55° to the northeast. The strike of the hornblende-schists is N. 80° W., and their dip, 45° to the northeast.

Lying between the yellow and black belts, is an auriferous quartz vein, known as the "Big Sand Vein." The trend of this vein is N. 50° to 60° E., which approximates that of the yellow and black belts. The ore from this vein is said to have yielded $11.00 or $12.00 of gold per ton. In the west end of the cut, the vein is about fifteen feet wide; but, at the point, where my sample for assay was taken, 150 feet east, it is only two feet wide. Beyond this, in an eastward, direction, it is covered by the weathered material, which has fallen in, from the walls; but, near the drain cut, where it is twenty feet under this soft material, it is said to be eight feet wide.

Only a few feet from this vein, was another, in the yellow belt. A prospect shaft, about ten feet deep, has recently been driven through the unaltered schists, along the clip of this vein. The hard schists, which surround the vein, are pearl-gray, and consist, chiefly, of a hydrous mica, the species of which has not yet been determined. These schists, which, as I have before stated, are, evidently, in part, at least, the unaltered material of the yellow belts, arc, by no means, so quartzose, in character, as the underlying slates of the black belt, at the Findley mine. The vein, which is of hard, white quartz, containing considerable of the hydromica-schist, in layers longitudinal with the vein, is about eighteen inches thick; and it clips with the slates about 40° to the northeast, striking northwesterly. The ore, taken from the shaft, is highly pyritiferous; and I saw quite a number of specimens, which showed liberal quantities of free gold in plates, with the pyrite. This seems, though, to have been local; as the sample for assay, taken by me, only a few feet below, proved to be of low grade.

In the east end of the cut, a vein has been followed by a tunnel, sixty feet long, into the Findley mine lot, adjoining; and, just opposite, on the other side of the cut, is another tunnel, running 100 feet, in a southwest direction, on the Bast lot. These tunnels have been abandoned, for some time; and they were not in condition for examination, at the time of my survey of the mine.