THE IRON SERIES, CONTINUED. 113 



available showed only siliceous limonites of low grade. Deep 

 test pits, which penetrated these caps and the drift, have, how- 

 ever, rewarded persistent prospecting. The ore is both soft, 

 blue, earthy, and sandy hematite, and hard specular. With these 

 are limonites and paint ores. The sections show at times fifty 

 feet and more of excellent hematite, which may be of excep- 

 tional purity and far below the Bessemer limit of phosphorus, or 

 which may slightly exceed it, but in general the published analyses 

 would show them to be quite high-grade, siliceous, low phosphorus 

 ores. 



The ore bodies lie in the jaspery quartzite (taconyte) along its 

 outcrop. They may be directly on the Pewabic quartzite, as- 

 seems usual, or else entirely in the taconyte. They fade out into 

 the latter along the dip. They are regarded by H. V. Winchell,, 

 to whose description the above is chiefly due, as having originated 

 by replacement of the taconyte. This rock sometimes contains 

 calcareous streaks, which have perhaps aided in furnishing the 

 carbonic acid, which, it is thought, has dissolved the silica of the 

 quartzite (taconyte) in the replacement process. The greater part 

 of it, however, has doubtless been atmospheric, and has by its 

 solvent action concentrated the iron already disseminated in the 

 taconyte. Mesabi is also written Mesaba and Missabe. 1 



2.02.29. Example 10. James River, Virginia. Specular hema- 

 tite in narrow beds (lenses), interstratified with quartzites and slates 

 of metamorphic character and Archaean age. They run four to six 

 feet, or less, in thickness, with prevailingly vertical dip, but they 

 also pitch diagonally down on the dip like the lenses of magnetite,, 



'later described. They furnish a very excellent grade of ore. The 

 ore bodies are found along both sides of the James River, a few 

 miles above Lynchburg. Some magnetite also occurs in the region, 

 and some limonite. More or less clay accompanies the ore. 2 



2.02.30. Similar lenses of specular ore and magnetite are found 



1 H. V. Winchell, Twentieth Ann. Rep. Minn. State Geologist, p. 112,. 

 1892 ; reprinted M. E., 1892. Rec. The New York Times of Dec. 14, 1892,, 

 has a quite extended account. H. V. Winchell and J. T. Jones, "The Bi- 

 wabik Mine," M. E., February, 1893. 



2 E. B. Benton, Tenth Census, Vol. XV., p. 263 (on Virginia). J. L.. 

 Campbell, Geology and Resources of the James River Valley, p. 49, New 

 York, 1882. B. Willis, Tenth Census, Vol. XV, p. 301. The Virginias, a 

 monthly formerly published by Jed. Hotchkiss, at Staunton, contains much 

 information on Virginia in general. 



