Copper has been mined at the Springfield, Florence, and Mineral Hill veins, and near Finksburg. It has been at various times actively carried on at all of these places, as well as at a few others in the neighborhood of Sykesville, but since the rediscovery and opening of the vast deposits at Lake Superior operations have ceased at all of these mines. Other metals, such as gold, silver, zinc, and lead, have been found in small quantities in the metalliferous belt of both Carroll and Montgomery Counties, but not as yet in profitable quantities. Gold ore has been found near Brighton, in the latter county, and a gold-mine is now being worked west of Brookville, about two miles from the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.
Frederick County. — The Blue Ridge Belt consists of Frederick County alone. It forms a tract of country extending from the Monocacy River and Little Pipe Creek on the east to the summit line of the South Mountain range on the west. The total area is about seven hundred square miles. It is about thirty-two miles in length from north to south, by twenty-five miles from east to west. In form it is somewhat of an irregular trapezoid, with an uneven triangle taken from its eastern side next the north. The South Mountain ridge separates it from Washington County, while the Potomac River forms its southern boundary. Montgomery County touches it along the southeast, Carroll County stands next to it on the east, and Pennsylvania on the north. The Catoctin range of mountains runs through its whole length from north to south, and forms the dividing line between two great valleys of great beauty, diversity, and fertility. That on the west is the Middletown Valley, while the other on the east is the Frederick, or Monocacy Valley. The former is not a deep trough scooped down to the base of the mountains, but it is a series of intervening foot-hills, which originally constituted the minor elevations of the great group of ranges connecting the Blue Ridge with the Catoctin. At the northern extremity these swellings rise to equal altitudes with the primary ranges, and fade into them by imperceptible degrees. The effect is to build there one great mountain mass, with three principal ridges rising only a few hundreds of feet above the inner depressions, but inclosing minor valleys of enchanting beauty, and throwing off spurs at intervals of from one to three or more miles.
The valley slopes from the central part of Hauver's District, widening as it runs towards the south, and gradually expanding and lowering as it gets nearer to the swellings of the Catoctin range. It is traversed throughout two-thirds of its length by Catoctin Creek, and is plentifully watered in all parts by rapid brooks and branches originating in springs. An unlimited supply of the purest mountain water, poured from the sandstones and slates, is ever present, as well for running mills and factories as for the direct uses of man and animals. Farmers are thus enabled to place their dairies upon streams of perpetual cool water, and every home is accordingly supplied with an abundance of well-kept milk, cream, butter, and cheese. The valley is one of great loveliness, and ranges over a large tract. It is about thirty miles in length by nine miles in its greatest breadth. Beginning at the northern end, it seems to be contracted out of existence by the spurs of abrupt high ridges which press into it from the right and left. But as it is followed towards the south the hills gradually open, become round-top broad swellings, falling lower at every grade, until near the Potomac River they rise to scarcely more than one hundred feet above the alluvial lowlands.
The soils are derived from the decomposition of sandstones next the mountains, or of slates, talcose schists, quartz, and trap rocks upon the more central lines. On the north, and in a few places along the flanks of the South Mountain, decomposing epidote adds another ingredient to the soil, and contributes to its fertility. The Catoctin Creek has built for itself a path of surprising variety, with a tortuous channel cut out of the hard sandstone and slate rocks. It rises by half a dozen brooks of great activity, high up the eastern flank of the South Mountain, in Catoctin and Hauver's Districts. In the midst of untamed grand scenery, where high peaks rise to an altitude of more than two thousand feet above the level of the sea, where the great white sandstone rock-masses have been split and riven asunder with titanic violence, and the dark heavy slates have been pitched into craggy piles of threatening aspect, there the little streams come creeping out of the clefts in the rocks, and leaping, as freed spirits just escaped from prison, to the terrace below, dash against the fragments and bowlders which stand in their way, and force a deep and rugged channel, ever widening as they run. Their advance is strangely attractive. Not by one even and continuous line of water do they quietly press along, but basin by basin, as every new stage is reached, dashing with impetuous force against broken ledges, leaping over huge bowlders which have pitched from the frightful chasm above, creeping between the tangled branches of broken, fallen trees, then roaring beneath the overlapping jaws of the precipice farther down, and then bounding along still lower until the distant valley is reached. Tributary rills add their quota to these at every stage, running out of the mossy and vine-clad banks, from the midst of dense thickets of graceful shrubs and flowering bushes. Here the beech grows, with its fresh lichen-painted gray and white bark, its neighbor being the fringe-fingered spruce, clad in scaly bark of deep brown, with its companions, the birch, peeled by the tearing winds, the chestnut, oak, the maple, and the tulip-tree.
Other branches come rolling into the widening creek from between the sharp mountain spurs, bending around their rocky flanks to find a more peaceful path, and distributing nourishment to the rank undergrowth in the little valleys which they have helped to cut. The Catoctin runs over a course of more than twenty miles from its farthest source, becomes a moderately wide, rapid creek after reaching the base of Middletown Hill, and thence continues widening and baying out in the bottoms until finally it enters the Potomac River through an alluvial basin. Besides the tributaries of the Catoctin, there are two long branches, which rise, likewise, in the South Mountain ridge, flow southeast, and empty into the Potomac. The longest of these is the Little Catoctin. It is a narrow but vigorous creek, with a full body of water running swiftly between the rolling hills, and furnishing power for several flour and saw-mills. That nearer the mountain is an active little brook which runs over the bowlders in the ravines of the farms next the ridge, and conies out bright and clear along the road running through Knoxville. All of these were originally the native places of the speckled trout, that found a congenial home in the little gravelly basins and deeper trenches in the dark sandstone or slate rocks. At present the valley is mostly cleared, and belts of trees rest here and there in rocky places, where the surface is more abruptly broken, or where the soil is too full of large surface bowlders to be made readily available for tillage. The greatest proportion of the Middletown Valley is covered by large farms in a high state of cultivation. Wheat, rye, oats, Indian corn, and forage plants are raised in vast quantities, and large stores of hay, placed in stacks near immense barns, indicate the extensive provision made for the numerous horses and cattle kept by the industrious inhabitants. Large distilleries have also been settled in various parts of the valley, and the production of whisky from the abundant cereals of the region furnishes immense quantities of liquor for exportation. Grazing is also carried on to a fairly large extent, and extensive droves of beef-cattle may at all times be seen in the fields fattening for home consumption, but chiefly for transportation to Baltimore, Washington, and other markets. The greater part of the region is based upon the talcose slates. These are largely invaded by veins of quartz, some of which are of enormous thickness, and the surface of the fields in many places is so full of the fragments of this white rock as to be a great hindrance to the rapid cultivation of the soil. Decomposition of the talcose rocks and the less ready disintegration of the quartz yields a soil more or less chocolate colored, but light, porous, easy to till, and well supplied with the natural nourishment of the cereals.
Wells cut into this rock to a depth of thirty feet or more generally furnish a permanent and abundant supply of water. This is often rendered a little hard by the presence of magnesia; but the taste is sweet, and no unhealthful influences have been attributed to its permanent use for drinking.
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