PENSYLVANIA 7 



unsettled hills, we came to Warwick Mine-holes, which 

 in this district, are very famous iron-mines. The ore 

 lies here, (as very generally in America), heaped up 

 in hills and shallow beneath the surface-mould. The 

 surface of these hills is an iron-bearing sand ; next, 

 there lies a brown ochre-earth with little iron-stones 

 intermixed, beneath which is a bed, of no great depth, 

 of coarse, red-brown ore, commonly soft ; farther down, 

 a whiteish clayey stratum, still somewhat mixed with 

 iron-bearing earth. The greatest depth they have 

 reached is no more than 20 feet, a sufficient store being 

 found above. Any knowledge of mining is superfluous 

 here, where there is neither shaft nor gallery to be 

 driven, all work being at the surface or in great, wide 

 trenches or pits. 



From here we missed the prescribed road, and came 

 through untravelled woods and hills to the house of a 

 Quaker where we were compelled to stop for some re- 

 freshments, which were not denied us ; on the other 

 hand, we lent the woman of the house a patient ear, 

 and received a circumstantial account of how her hus- 

 band during the war had, by a wise use of his post in 

 the Land-Office, got to himself a handsome estate, 

 seven plantations, and could now laugh at the world. 

 This he may do with the more reason, because he made 

 his purchases largely with paper-money, the no-value 

 of which he perceived at the right time, using to his 

 advantage the credulity of his patriotic fellow-country- 

 men. From this place we aimed to get once more into 

 the regular road to Lancaster, but made another little 

 detour to see Jones's Mine-holes, iron-mines very little 

 different from those just mentioned. Brown, sandy, 

 and soft iron-stone lies shallow beneath the surface, 



