CEKTAIN MAGNETIC lEON ORES OF ASHE 

 COUNTY* 



BY JOSEPH HYDE PEATT 



During the past six months the author has had the oppor- 

 tunity of examining several of the magnetic iron ore deposits 

 of Ashe County, and to study in considerable detail their oc- 

 currence and the geology of the districts. 



The deposits examined are located in the northeastern por- 

 tion of Ashe County, principally along the north fork of New 

 River and its tributaries that flow into it from the north. The 

 deposits can readily be divided into three belts: one known as 

 the ''River Belt," another the "Poison Branch Belt," and the 

 third, "The Helton Creek Belt." 



While formerly these deposits were twenty or more miles 

 from the railroad, the one now being built across Ashe County 

 will bring the Ballou-Piney Creek, the Joseph Graybeal and 

 Waughbank properties within a very short distance of the rail- 

 road. 



These ores are all magnetic iron ores, occurring in crystal- 

 line rocks which consist principally of hornblende gneisses and 

 schists and micaceous schists. The deposits of ore are undoubt- 

 edly lenticular or lens-shaped, and are pinching and widening 

 in all dimensions. These lenses may continue for long distances 

 along the strike and on the dip ; then, again, there may be a 

 series of smaller lenses separated from each other by country 

 rock or connected with each other by a thin seam of ore. Some- 

 times they may be so small as to be of no commercial value; 

 while at other times they attain enormous size, both in length 

 and depth. Usually these ore deposits are comformable to the 

 enclosing country rock. Each ore locality has to be investigated 

 as a separate unit, inasmuch as there is great variation in them, 

 and it does not follow that because one ore deposit is well de- 

 veloped that another one, even in the same belt, will be equally 

 as good. These lenses have a general northeast-southwest trend. 



The deposits examined include the Calloway and W. H. 



* Reprinted from Economic Paper No. 34, of the North Carolina Geological 

 and Economic Survey, pp. 65-73. 



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