Ferruginous Deposits. 61 



large vineyard on the side of an adjacent hill, gave promise of a lus- 

 cious harvest, and added one more feature to the exotic look of all 

 around. A stratum of white sandstone rock is found in all the adja- 

 cent hills, at an elevation of about one hundred feet above the bed 

 of the river. It is used for v^'indow sills, and various other purpo- 

 ses. The lower portion of the bed is stained with red oxide of iron. 

 It splits with great facility, and is used for posts in fencing the Zoar 

 garden. 



Ferruginous Deposits. — The great ferruginous deposit, which 

 crosses the state like a belt, in a S. W. and N. E. direction, is here 

 found in its greatest purity and abundance. It first makes its ap- 

 pearance about five miles north of this place, and is known to ex- 

 tend south for at least thirty miles. It does not hold of this width 

 for the whole distance across the state, but can be traced without 

 difficulty from near the mouth of the Scioto to Conneaut on the 

 Pennsylvania line. It lies here about forty or fifty feet above the 

 white sand rock, and near the tops of many of the hills. The ore 

 is found in three separate beds, of about six or eight inches in thick- 

 ness, and about two feet apart, lying in a matrix or bed of yellow 

 ferruginous clay. The bottom stratum of ore rests on a deposit of 

 bluish brown clay, which when dry assumes a foliated structure, and 

 is very similar to that found in the bottoms of ponds. These de- 

 posits were once continuous, but are now found in broken tabular 

 masses, of from ten to one hundred pounds weight. Its structure is 

 lamellar, splitting into thin folia, or concentric layers, when exposed 

 to the air and sun. The ore is very abundant, and yields from eight 

 to nine hundred tons from an acre of surface. In the furnace, it af- 

 fords about forty per cent, of iron, or two and a half tons of ore 

 yield one ton of pig metal. It crops out on the abrupt and sloping 

 sides of the hills, near their tops, and is yet pursued only so far as it 

 can be done by excavating the superincumbent earth. 1 visited the 

 mines on the Zoar lands, where it is found in great purity and abun- 

 dance. Directly over the iron ore is a deposit of coal, of two or 

 three feet, separated from it, however, by a bed of shale. Below 

 the ferruginous deposit is another bed of coal ; and near the base of 

 the hills, fifty feet below the white sand rock, is a deposit of lime- 

 stone, several feet in thickness. I could not discover any fossil 

 shells, or impressions of plants, in the iron ore ; but one bed of it, 

 however, is columnar in its structure, when burnt, or roasted, much 

 resembling one species of fossil madrepore, common to the valley 



