14 EAST TENNESSEE. 



been celebrated for j'ears as the best, or among the best in the country. 

 A writer in describing it says : 



"I cannot better describe tlie proi)erty than by saj-ing that half the 

 property is vast hills of iron from base to summit. The water jxjwer at 

 the furnace is the best in East Tennessee that I have seen, there being 

 fourteen feet fall on a front of one-eighth of a mile. 



In addition to iron there is found on this same property immense de- 

 posits of j-ellow, brown and ^'an Dyke ochre, and most probably lead. 

 Near by Calvin Cole is now taking out gi-anulated galena, found in soft 

 blue lime rock from a vein forty feet in thickness. 



The iron made of the ores we have so imperfectly described has long 

 been celebrated for its superior quality. Since the war a new impetus 

 has been given to the manufacture of iron, especially in Greene and Roane 

 counties, in each of which new and costly establishments have just gone 

 into successful operation. At Eockwood they are now manufacturing pig 

 iron. Tennessee iron is quoted in Louisville at four dollars higher per 

 ton than the best northern iron. The iron at Rockwood is made out of 

 the fossiliferous or lenticular ore. The main bed of this ore commences 

 in Claibourne county, below Tazewell, and extends through Campbell, 

 Anderson, Roane and into Rhea. Prof Safford says "it is nearly or 

 quite one hundred miles long ; at many points two and three feet in 

 thickness. ' ' He particularly speaks of Elk Fork in Campbell county, as 

 "a remarkable and valuable locahty of this ore," where, "owing to the 

 great number of minor folds or wrinkles in the rock, the ore layer is 

 repeated a great number of times, and crops out in numerous parallel 

 bands for a distance of five or six miles ; many of these are from twenty 

 inches to three feet thick. In some i)laces it is six feet thick. The 

 Knoxville and Kentucky Railroad pas.ses through this iron region. Coal 

 also abounds in vast quantities in the Elk Fork A'alley. There is a similar 

 deposit of iron and coal at Wheeler's Gap, also on the railroad. 



From a communication from an iron manufacturer to this Association, 

 we make the following extracts : 



"Within eight miles of Knoxville are abundant beds of iron; and 

 within twenty miles there is a body of iron said to be nearly equal in 

 quantity to the Iron IMountain of ^Missouri and of i)recisely the same 

 quality. * * No country of the world furnishes mineral wealth more 

 convenient in locality, superior in qualitj', greater in variety, or easier of 

 access than are our vast deposits. Almost every county possesses a wealth 

 of iron sufficient to enrich a State or pay the debt of a nation ; and the 

 flicilities for manufacturing are as great as the mineral is abundant. Con- 

 venient water power, an iinlimited sui)ply of timber and bituminous coal, 

 chea]) food and cheai) labor, furnish all the tacilities for priiducing iron 

 cheaply and in unlimited ((Uantity. A distinguished iron manufacturer 

 from New York gave it as his opinion that iron could be made by charcoal 

 at one of the mines of East Tennessee and hauled ten miles to the rail- 

 road at one-half the cost of producing a similar article hi the North. If 



