I have worked on this treasure story for about 40 years and as GoldenTimes said above, the Rocky Face in the story is not the one at Dalton. The bars retrieved were dory gold, and Waterhouse didn't discover it was gold until he took the bar into Chattanooga, a couple of years after the initial discovery, and had it examined. The span of time from initial retrieval to the revelation that it was gold was long enough to blur the memories of the exact spot of the caves location in the mountains. Waterhouse did continue to search for the location, but never did relocate it.
This treasure story involves a lot of unmentioned archaeological controversy involving presence of Maya settlements in the southeastern US, notably one near Sautee, GA, on Brasstown Bald, and involves several very powerful and dangerous players with deep pockets who are still actively seeking it. Note also there is an operational gold mine at the base of Fort Mountain where the Cherokee did battle with the Moon Eyes and destroyed them, leaving their mystical stone works on the mountain to be discovered by Longhunters in the late 1700's, and which by then lay in ruins with century old trees growing through the rubble.
A lot of disinformation has been released to obscure the actual area of this trove in an effort to keep the small time treasure hunter from making a major discovery, and also to confuse the competing factions who are presently involved in the search. This search at the present is more of a watch over the general region the treasure is supposedly located. These powerful corporate and government entities can't locate it with any current technology, so they watch and wait for either an accidental discovery, or a purposeful one by a treasure hunter. In either case the initial discoverer would be eliminated, either legally in a court of law, or physically if necessary.
The only operation that would even remotely work would be like the one carried out by Doc Ness at Victorio Peak from 1937 through 1949, where he hauled out a fortune in gold, one pack at a time over the course of about 10 years from the twisted and narrow cave passage he had discovered the lost gold bullion in. Note also, he was eventually killed in a gunfight in 1949 with a business associate he had brought onboard to help with the recovery. Gold Fever is a dangerous mental disorder which most humans can't deal with in a rational manner and can get you killed, easily.
The Cherokee had many gold mines in operation in the Georgia mountains, but they were closed and well hidden before the Indian Removal Act of 1838 came into play. Some have been located, reopened, and worked but most still lay undiscovered. There were seven Cherokee gold mines in operation at Dahlonega before the removal and only three were located by the miners who infested the region after the forced removal of the Cherokee. Many Cherokee had raw gold with which to barter for material goods from the white traders.
It's a long and twisted historical story involving early Spanish explorers, military deserters, Hasidic Jewish gold miners, runaway slaves, European settlers in the 1600's before history recognizes any such activity, Maya, Cherokee, Yuchi, and Appalachi Indians, giants, little people, pirates, war in a savage wilderness, and a trove of dory gold that could weigh in the tons. The story would make one hell of a book but the writer would probably end up in a fatal accident, or at least that is how it would appear, so the book shan't be written, at least not by me.
Good luck in your quest!