University of Virginia Library

Copper.

In Carroll, Floyd, and Grayson Counties, large veins of copper ores,
sulphurets and carbonates exist, and prior to the war some of them were
successfully worked. But their remoteness from railway lines has deterred
capitalists from re-establishing these mining operations. There is some
prospect that at an early day a railroad will penetrate that region, and lead
to the re-opening of these valuable mines.

In several of the Piedmont counties copper ores are known to exist,
but the mines have never been operated, except in Loudoun and Amherst,
where much valuable ore has been raised and shipped to the North, and
considerable quantities of native copper ores have been gotten as a byproduct
from the pyrites of the Arminius mines in Louisa County.

Copper has been discovered in at least eighteen counties in Virginia,
and in many of them considerably developed.