IRON ORES 71 



of ore have been won. Most of the ore is obtained above water 

 level, cars being nm in on a series of terraces. The ore is 

 broken down and loaded onto cars by means of barrows, and 

 thus transported to the furnaces. 



Along the South mountain, from the Delaware river to 

 and beyond the Susquehanna river, deposits of magnetic iron 

 ores are found and have been worked. In Lehigh and Lan- 

 caster counties at present they are mined chiefly for concen- 

 tration, as the ore is lean. 



Along the northern and western faces of the South moun- 

 tain, and in the valley between the South and North moun- 

 tain ranges, brown hematite ore has been mined in many 

 localities, some of the deposits having been worked on a liberal 

 scale, and others, producing but little, have a histor}^ approxi- 

 mating a century of time. As a rule, these brown hematites 

 require washing to make them desirable for blast furnace 

 purposes, and they yield, after such treatment, about 45 per 

 cent of iron, some with 2 to 5 per cent of maganese, and all 

 with phosphorus above the Bessemer limit. 



In the bituminous coal belt, which extends across Penn- 

 sylvania from northeast to southwest, with the Allegheny 

 mountains as an axis, the carbonate ores obtained were for- 

 merly an important base of supply. The location of many of 

 these ores in small veins, the exploitation of which is expen- 

 sive, the necessity of roasting them, and their generally high 

 phosphorus content have much limited their use. 



In Delaware there are several isolated deposits of brown 

 hematite which have been worked but are now inactive. In 

 eastern Maryland carbonates which occur mixed with clay 

 are mined in a desultory way by farmers and used near the 

 city of Washington to produce a special grade of pig metal 

 with charcoal. In western Maryland there are brown hem- 

 atites, and some lean magnetites, which, while appearing to 

 occur in large proportions, would have to be concentrated to 

 be merchantable. 



In Virginia the bulk of the iron ores mined are of the 

 brown hematite class, some occurring in beds of clay, others 

 in a form approaching veins embedded in rock strata. Minor 

 deposits of red hematite also exist, and in southwestern Vir- 



