318 Notice of Steel Mine and Iron Works. 



of the mountain in an oblique direction. For the first one hundred 

 and fifty yards (the distance between a and 6) the rock is concealed 

 by a considerable depth of soil and loose materials ; but on reach- 

 ing h, the gneiss comes into view and continues in broken ledges 

 upon the right, sometimes elevating itself twenty or thirty feet above 

 the vein. The immediate vicinity of the vein, from h quite down to 

 h, is every where strewed over with large masses of the rock, con- 

 fusedly thrown together; among which, just soil enough has accumu- 

 lated to give support to a few trees and to the wild laurel, which here 

 thrives in abundance. Throughout this extent, which is at least half 

 a mile, wherever they have removed the superincumbent rubbish, the 

 vein of ore has been brought into vlev^. 



With regard to the width of the vein and the nature of its walls, 

 we are informed by persons who were acquanted with the mine dur- 

 ing the period of its former exploration, that in the shaft o, it varied 

 from six to eight feel and was inclosed by smooth and well defined 

 walls throughout. The mouth of this opening is so much encum- 

 bered, at present, with rubbish, that it is impossible to verify this ac- 

 count; but what observations 1 had an opportunity of making at h, of- 

 fered nothing to contradict it; although the operations here have been 

 so partial as to develop one wall of the vein only, which is that upon 

 the upper side of the mountain. It has been supposed that the vein 

 undergoes a very great enlargement at h, in consequence of the crop- 

 ping out of the veinstone at several places, twenty or twenty five feet 

 from the upper side of the vein ; but these masses, though apparent- 

 ly engaged in the main mass of the mountain, appeared to me to be 

 portions of parallel veins and not parts of die great vein of the Sparry 

 Iron, There was no difficulty, however, in tracing the ore six and a 

 half feet from the upper side of the vein, in several places ; so as to 

 render it certain that the body of ore does not narrow as it descends 

 towards the river; — a point of some moment to establish, since if this 

 ore shall come to be wrought, it will no doubt be sought at the near- 

 est spot to the river from which it can be obtained. 



White Quartz is the only earthy substance found existing with the 

 Sparry Iron in the vein. In some places the Quartz forms seams 

 half a foot wide, through which the Sparry Iron is disseminated in 

 small crystals ; but the Quartz may oftener be said to be dispersed 

 through the Sparry Iron, — the latter substance forming the bulk of 

 the vein. In the latter case, the Quartz is in long prismatic crystals; 

 usually, without regular pyramidal tcrminationsc Indeed, the Sparry 



