314 Notice of Steel Mine and Iron Works. 



which occurred relating to the departure of Feuchter, appears to have 

 been in part, the cause, of exciting fresh delusions. When the Ger- 

 man left the piace, he was assisted by several persons in the removal 

 of a number of very heavy boxes. One of these, accidentally falling 

 to the ground, burst open ; and revealed to the eyes of a negro slave 

 a quantity of bars and ingots, which he afterwards described as hav- 

 ing the color and look of pewter. The agent was now suspected to 

 have carried on the working of the mine fraudulently, and to have 

 caused its products to be surreptitiously conveyed out of the country 

 for his private advantage ; and we find the mine again gaining char- 

 acter as a valuable deposit of silver. The resources of the neigh- 

 borhood, however, appear to have been too much weakened for a 

 third experiment ; and accordingly a company was organized in the 

 city of New York, who came forward and obtained a lease of the 

 mine for the term of forty three years. They commenced opera- 

 tions upon a much wider scale than either of the former companies ; 

 and they have left behind the evidences of a very heavy expenditure. 

 Their works exhibit more science in the working of mines ; but their 

 ignorance and delusion respecting the nature and value of the ores 

 must have been not at all inferior to that of their predecessors. Ac- 

 cording to the best information to be had at present, they commenced 

 by continuing the shaft at a; but the water coming in, in great 

 abundance, they were obliged to betake themselves to the plan of a 

 horizontal adit or gallery, in order to accomplish its drainage. They 

 accordingly descended the mountain towards the river in the direc- 

 tion of the vein, removing at intervals the accumulations of soil 

 and loose rocks which conceal it throughout its whole distance. 

 Thus, theyVevealed the vein at b, c, d, e,f, g, h, i, and k,: and, from 

 an inspection of the greater part of these places, it is impossible to 

 conceive why, if the Sparry Iron was the object of their search, they 

 had not contented themselves by working the vein, sub die, at a point 

 as near the river as possible ; since at many of the above mentioned 

 points, it is obvious, that this ore is as abundant, and the vein as wide, 

 as at the first made opening. They, however, decided to commence 

 their gallery at h, and to continue it through the vein, until they 

 should strike the perpendicular shaft at a, distant about half a mile. 

 Had their sole object been to drain the shaft n, this object might 

 have been effected by an adit from the point a with a saving of at 

 least two thirds the distance, although the labor of following the vein, 

 it must be confessed, is considerably less than that of penetrating ibe 



