OF SOUTH CAROLINA. ! 83 
Directly west of this, on Jumping Branch, is the Hardin bank—strike N. 50° E. dip 45° to 80° 
towards the N. W. This bed is from three to four feet thick, very uniform, both in thickness and 
direction. ‘The planes of the strata in which it occurs being unusually straight for micaceous rocks. 
Like the bed already mentioned as occurring near the furnace, on People’s Creek, this is regularly 
interstratified with the slates, splitting readily into lamine, and presenting every appearance of 
stratification. Near the surface the ore consists of red and yellow ochres, with harder portions, giv- 
ing a brown powder and streak—being portions of the bed that have assumed the form of the hydrous 
peroxide or limonite. For about twenty feet below the surface these ores continue the same; but 
below that they are grey, showing, however, when indented by the hammer, a reddish streak.— 
They are also, to some extent, magnetic. At water level pyrites makes its appearance ; and even 
native sulphur is found coating the surface of the fissures in the ore. ’ 
This ore is not compact, but rather composed of small, slightly cohering grains, having a grey, 
dull lustre, excepting where it has been crushed, and there the red powder of the specular oxides 
is seen. 
After a careful examination of the ore of this bed, I am fully convinced that it was originally a 
sulphuret of iron, or what is known at the mines as iron pyrites; and that if it be pursued to a 
sufficient depth, it will terminate in that mineral. The shaft sunk on the bed is at present about 
fifty feet in depth, which is about the level of natural drainage—so that it is placed beyond atmos- 
pheric influences. 
It is not a little curious that pyrites will resist decomposition, when placed under water, while, if 
it be exposed to the atmosphere, it is readily acted upon, and reduced to an oxide. Nearly every 
gold mine in the State offers examples in illustration of this fact. For, wherever oxide of iron is 
found mingled with the ores, when water is reached, it is invariably found in the form of iron 
pyrites. At the depth mentioned above the bed is mixed with iron pyrites, and the ore may be 
traced, through every stage, to the red oxide, of which the bed is composed near the surface. 
We have first the sulphuret or iron pyrites, which, by decomposition, becomes probably the pro- 
toxide, a portion of which combines with another atom of oxygen and forms peroxide, the mixture 
of the two now existing together, producing the magnetic oxide. 'The remaining protoxide is con- 
verted into peroxide, and the whole is now the specular oxide or red ore which we find towards 
the surface. And if, during this change, water enter into combination with the ore, we shall have 
the hydrous peroxide, or brown ore which, I have already remarked, is found in this mine. Every 
step in this process may, in like manner, be observed at the furnace bed, on People’s Creek. 
With these facts before one, and supported as they are by numerous analogies in other mines, it 
is impossible to avoid the conclusion that these ores are the result of the decomposition of iron 
pyrites. 
In the same range with the Hardin bank, and north of the lime-rock, this ore is exposed on the 
surface, although I believe it has not been explored. 
Hyprovus Peroxipr, or Brown Hematite. 
This ore is perhaps more widely distributed than any of the ores of the State. It is principally 
confined to the mica slates of Spartanburg and Pickens, and is the only ore used at the Pacolet 
