36 



defect common to nearly all the veins in the primary region; 

 that is to say, it is apt to be too compact for easy reduction 

 in the furnace. It yields an excellent iron, and seems especially 

 well suited for making castings. 



Let me here be permitted to express the hope that this favoured 

 region of New Jersey, so eminently enriched by nature with that 

 most valuable of mineral treasures, iron, is destined to behold, at 

 no very distant day, a brighter era as a manufacturing district. 

 Two important new methods, recently introduced into the 

 smelting of iron, namely, that of the hot blast and the substi- 

 tution of anthracite coal for charcoal — now become in many 

 districts of the State too scarce to be employed — seem peculiarly 

 well adapted to remove some of the difficulties which attend the 

 use of these compact magnetic ores. These obviously require a 

 more elevated temperature for their profitable reduction than 

 can be given them by the aid of charcoal and the ordinary blast, 

 and seem particularly to call for the application of the modern 

 improvements referred to. The success which has lately attended 

 the use of anthracite in the smelting of iron in Pennsylvania, 

 suggests that New Jersey need no longer be prevented from 

 availing herself of the advantages, arising from her superabundant 

 treasures in ore, by the absence of wood upon her hills. 



Conclusions deducible from the p-evious fads. — The first theo- 

 retical inference, naturally suggested by the remarkable manner in 

 which all the veins, without any exception, occur is, that the primary 

 strata existed in all probability at a rather steep inclination before 

 the intrusion of the veins ; for it is inconceivable how a forcible 

 injection of fluid ore could enter a series of beds, lying in a nearly 

 horizontal position, without in some cases causing and occupying 

 fissures transverse to the strike of the strata. The fact that other 

 similar veins — those of the altered white limestone of Sussex — 

 occupy a corresponding position in reference to the neighbouring 

 strata, and appear to have been produced after the formation of 

 the limestone, is another argument lending probability to the 

 notion that their origin was subsequent to the formation and 

 upheaving of the gneiss. 



Moreover, it is not difficult to conceive, that if the strata 

 were previously nearly vertical, or at a high angle, the mol- 

 ten ore would easily insinuate itself in the plane of the strati- 



