Saxon(?) Gold Mine

Sheldon and I went exploring on a wet day looking for another mine tunnel that we had both missed when we'd individually visited the nearby hard-rock mine workings pictured in my December 2023 album. I've not found any reference to these mine works in any of the old reports. I originally thought it would likely be a mica mine, due to the proximity of several other mica mines, and the fact that the location is not on any of the N. Georgia gold belts. But after finding it and exploring, I now think they were looking for gold, due to a very prominent narrow quartz vein that the tunnel is centered on. I have a book that mentions an early resident mining gold in this vicinity. Don't know if he ever found anything, but if this is the location, he certainly put in a lot of effort digging through the solid rock here! We also went looking for a couple of old homesites, but turned up the wrong cove and found the collapsed chimneys of a different home place.

Sheldon at the mouth of the tunnel While this is technically an adit, I'll refer to it as a tunnel for clarity...

Bruce inside the tunnel entrance

Ice stalagmite, on the tunnel floor near the mouth.

We saw a couple dozen of these, of various shapes and sizes.

One more ice stalagmite...

I was probably photographing the ice stalagmites here. (Cell phone photo by Sheldon)

The quartz vein that the miners were digging is very visible. This is one of the best visual examples I've seen that shows how miners chased a vein through solid rock.

Bird nest, on wall of the tunnel. In the previous photo, you can see this nest at upper right...

Sheldon had some lunch and poked around outside while I was photographing inside. You can see that we got a little drizzly rain and fog while we were up here.

A narrow fissure / cavity extends through the tunnel on both sides. This is the view on the left side...

A closer view, the camera doesn't really reveal the depth of the fissure.

Quartz vein in the tunnel wall

The fissure / cavity extending from the opposite (right) wall. Once the fissure got a few feet beyond the tunnel wall, it varied in width from 4-8 inches wide.

The narrow fissure went back at least 15-20 feet on both sides. Again, I couldn't really capture the depth with the camera.

Trying to get another peek into one of the cavities, but it doesn't show well...

Rear of the tunnel, with the prominent quartz vein Not a long tunnel, we estimated 35-40 feet deep.

Heading back out...

Back outside, I took a few pics looking in... (Cell phone photo by Sheldon)

As Sheldon was doing the same thing looking out...

Outside the tunnel was one of those weird "re-joined" trees that one sees occasionally.

Near the tunnel was another long mine cut leading up to a rock head-wall, but there was no tunnel here.
Coming down off the mountain, we went looking for a couple of old homesite chimneys, but apparently went up the wrong cove. We did find another old home site however.

This home had two large chimneys, both of which collapsed inwards. The second chimney is visible in the rear.

This chimney was built with some pretty massive stones.

The second chimney wasn't as recognizable...

Small falls on Cooper Branch.

Falls from another angle

It's hard to see in the pic, but there was a Darth Vaderish - skull shaped ice formation at the end of this log above the falls. With the terrain, I couldn't get a photo that showed it well.

An interesting mostly moss-covered boulder. I'm not sure if the "lines" are striations, some other incised grooves, or cracks that resulted from the rock cooling when it formed. I should have examined it a little closer...

Saxon Mines Index	South Union Co. Mine Index
Towns-Union Mining Index	S Towns - S Union Co. Index