A MAGNETITE-MARBLE ORE AT LANSING, N. C* 



By W. S. Bayley 

 Plates 24-27 

 introduction 



Near the village of Lansing in Ashe County, N. C., is an iron mine 

 from which is being taken an ore which differs materially from all 

 other iron ores in the State and which resembles in some respects the 

 iron ores obtained from the Franklin limestone in New Jersey. The 

 mine which is the property of the Ashe Mining Co., is on the Virginia- 

 Carolina Railroad alongside Horse Creek, and about half a mile south- 

 east of Lansing Station. (See map, pi. 24.) 



Pratt^ refers to the locality under the name of the Waughbank 

 property as follows : 



"About 100 3'ards from the creek a tunnel was run by the Penna. 

 Steel Co. The tunnel has a direction of N. 40° E., and at a distance 

 of 100 feet a crosscut was made extending 46 feet S. 40° W. 



' ' This crosscut showed ore for its whole distance, making the width 

 of the ore deposit over 30 feet. This ore is composed of coarse granular 

 magnetite in a matrix composed of micaceous material and manganese 

 oxide." The vein was estimated by Pratt to be 70% ore. Analyses 

 of a fair sample of the vein (I) and of a selected sample of the mag- 

 netite (II) gave: 



Fe Mn PS Ti 



I 46.25 4.34 .026 .027 tr 



II 67.25 1.68 



This is evidently the same deposit as that described by Nitze^ 

 as " Ballon 's Horse Creek ore bank." At the time Nitze wrote the 

 opening w^as in the "shape of an undercut in the side of the hill into 

 which it extends perhaps 50' as a slope." The seam, the dip of which 

 *'is apparently towards the northeast," is at least six feet M^ide, the 

 lower two feet being the harder. Nitze 's analyses correspond closely 

 with those furnished by Pratt. They are as follows : 



* Published with the permission of the Director of the IT. S. Geological Survey and the 

 Director of the N. C. Geological and Economic Survey. 



1 Pratt, J. H., The Mining Industry in North Carolina during 1911 and 1912. N. C. 

 Geol. and Econ. Survev, Economic Paper No. 34, p. 68. 1914. 



2 Nitze, H. B. C, Iron Ores of North Carolina. N. C. Geol. Survey, Bull. No. 1, p. 156. 

 lCt»3. 



[138] 



