78 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [Nov. 20, 
History. 
The outcroppings of these great ore bodies must have been 
early noticed. It is recorded by Alger that at Franklin the 
portion of the bed or vein that was rich in zincite and willemite 
projected originally as a slight ridge, because of its greater re- 
sistance to erosion as compar red with the neighboring franklinite. 
The discovery of the ore doubtless, therefore, dates back to the 
early settlement of the valley. Even to this day the few crop- 
pings that remain seem unfavorable to vegetation. The first 
mining that I find recorded was done by Lord Stirling, after 
whom Stirling Hill was named, and whose career, before the 
Revolutionary war, in which he was a general on the American 
side, was closely identified with the iron industry of New Jersey. 
He resided at Baskenridge, N. J., from 1774-1776 *and devoted 
his time to these iron dev ‘elopments. He acquired the title to 
the Stirling Hill, and dug some test pits on the ore, thinking 
that the red zincite was cuprite. Large trees had grown on the 
dumps in 1844 (Alger) and in the 70 years of interval nothing 
further seems to have been done. It was somewhat different at 
Franklin, because small bodies of magnetite are found near the 
franklinite and the latter itself was taken for an iron ore. A 
furnace was erected at least early in the present century, for 
Nuttall, writing in 1822, refers to it as a well established works 
and mentions the salamanders that were formed by the frank- 
linite and the trouble that ensued, It is not surprising that 
dealing with a new and hitherto unknown mineral which looked 
exactly like magnetite, these primitive furnace men, without the 
help of chemistry, vot into difficulties. All of Mine Hill and 
indeed much of the “valley to the north belonged to Dr. Samuel 
Fowler of Franklin, whose name is attached to the mineral 
Fowlerite. 
Regarding zinc, nothing very serious was done until after 
1840, and then for ten years or so various enterprises were 
more or less unsuccessful. The ores could more easily be 
turned into zine white for a pigment than into metallic zinc, for 
which latter there was then but a limited demand. In 1848 Dr. 
Fowler sold to the Sussex Zinc and Copper Mining and Manu- 
facturing Company,+ “all the zinc, copper, lead, silver and gold 
ores, and also all other metals or ores containing metals (except 
the metal or ore called Franklinite and iron ores, where it exists 
separate from the zinc) existing, found or to be found on Mine 
*See Life of William Alexander, Earl] of Stirling, by W. A Duer New Jersey 
Hist. Soc. 1847. 
: + See paper by J. C. Platt, Jr., cited above, from whom these quotations are 
taken, 
