pS N^o!' 2^5Y" JOHN H. KERR RESERVOIR BASIN — MILLER 293 



IKON-BEARING SITES 



A number of closely spaced sites containing various types of iron 

 specimens occupy positions on the secondary terrace, across from Oak 

 Hill Island, on the Huntley and Eussell tracts. All were located by 

 Mr. James V. Howe, an expert on metals, who made his home at the 

 old Russell Place, a lovely colonial house, a short distance from 

 Clarksville, Va. He was first attracted by the chunks of a slaglike 

 material which appeared on the surface of a number of areas and in 

 his search for similar areas he managed to locate 21. All produced 

 the same type of iron and slag fragments. 



Some of these areas produced only a few iron fragments while 

 others had a rather concentrated deposit. Several were partially ex- 

 plored by Howe to try to solve the source of these iron remains. His 

 subsequent investigations produced many nondescript bits of iron, 

 fragments of horseshoes, nails of various sizes and sorts, pieces of 

 hinges, nubbins of tools and other scrap, all of which appeared to 

 have been either cut, broken, or discarded. Several of these had 

 marks of the wedge or chisel, and a number of the individual pieces 

 were partially covered over with particles of a slaglike matter. All 

 pieces were thoroughly rusted. 



A fairly large sample of these iron objects was turned over to the 

 River Basin Surveys party for study purposes. Among them are 

 various sized nails, knife blades, bolts, chisels, and other forms. 

 Howe had sectioned, etched, and polished several of the nodular forms 

 with the possibility of determining the bodily configuration, as de- 

 fined by specific patterns and the methods of smelting and hardening. 



Later on Howe sent others of these nodular forms to the Mechanical 

 Engineering Department of Iowa State College ; to a member of the 

 Gisholt Machine Company in Madison, Wis. ; and to members of the 

 U.S. National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C., to be tested 

 for source and age. 



He received reports from Emil F. Wagner, of the Gisholt Machine 

 Company, who had examined the specimens and determined that 

 they were "over 200 years old and probably older — an extremely old 

 type of iron and processed directly from the ore." 



R. W. Breckenridge, of Iowa State College, who was interested 

 primarily from the standpoint of the early use of iron in America, 

 cooperated by making microscopic, hardness, and spark tests of other 

 specimens. His results showed : 



(1) The nature of many of the articles and tools, some of which are only 

 partially finished, is almost unmistakably of the colonial period or later. 



(2) No coins with dates or any articles with personal or place names have 

 been found. 



(3) The material dug from the sites consists to a greater extent of smelter 

 slag and not cinders from blacksmith forges. 



