ee 
me 
en the Counties of New-Haven and Litchfield. 213 
tion. Geologically speaking, the Salisbury iron ore as is 
ebvious from the statements already given concerning the 
rock formations of this district, must be considered as belong- 
ing to a country highly primitive. It may be added that mi- 
ca slate, without marble, is observed between the furnaces 
and the ore bed; somewhat farther West upon the borders 
of the state of New-York, the marble again appears, but 
whether accompanied by mica-slate I am not informed, al- 
though it is most probable that it is. s - 
The Salisbury iron ore may, with propriety, be referred to 
the mica-slate as its proper accompanying rock, because it 
forms the basis of the country, but the ore, as far as I could 
learn, is not imbedded in any rock. Its immediate bed is clay. 
it is about seventy years since this great bed was opene 
It lies in the side of a hill of moderate elevation, and al- 
though numerous, large and deep excavations have been 
made, there is no indication that the ore is in danger of being 
exhausted. It is not worked by shafts and galleries (as I be- 
_fieve iron ores generally are not) but like a quarry of stone, 
open to the sky, and such connexions are formed between 
the pits and the general surface of the country, that, to trans- 
_ port the ore, carts and waggons are driven freely in and out. 
. The ore, as already remarked, is the brown iron stone 
of Werner—that is, the brown oxid of iron, more or less con- 
taminated with manganese and other metals, and with por- 
tions of earthy substances. 
_ All the varieties of this kind of ore may be found here 
in great perfection and beauty, and particularly very fine 
- Specimens of what is called the brown hematite. Many o 
~ 
these, in their delicate, fibrous and radiated structure, in the 
highly varnished gloss of the exterior, and in the elegant sta- 
Jactical forms which they have assumed, cannot be surpassed 
by specimens in any collections.* 
hese large cavernous masses also which contain cavi- 
ties usually lined with the stalactical and other beautiful 
orms of iron, are here abundant, and an amateur of fine 
specimens may here be gratified at a cheap rate. 
*If I mistake not, the vertical position of the stalactites, in the ore bed 
sufficiently indicates that their form is owing to gravity, while their fibrous 
a 
| and radiated structure, seems to depend on the laws of erystalization. 
_Some of the Salisbury eres, there is a delicate. sooty coating which appears 
"is HE te find 
to be manganese, and probably affords no groand,(as some have imagined,) 
re \ 
fener 
