Lesley.] 4:0 [jan. 2 and Feb. 6, 



Mr. John W. Harden, an experienced Superintendent of mines, con- 

 siders the extensive dry tailings, which cover the slope to the north of 

 the cuts, oipable of beiug profitably washed, while being got out of the 

 way of future open cuts. 



Traditional accounts of such old ore mines as these are to be credited 

 with due caution and large allowances. But they have their value. It is 

 of great importance, then, that shafts of over a hundred feet have been 

 repeatedly sunk along this range ; for they are proofs that experience has 

 justified them ; proofs that bodies of ore had been found lying very deep 

 beneath the surface. The open cuts exhibited by the maps (figs. 8 and 10) 

 were once very deep and were stopped by water, as has been the case 

 with all the ore banks of these valleys. The miners were always driven from 

 fine beds of rich rock-ore by the influx of water which they had no ade- 

 quate machinery to keep under. We can easily believe it therefore, when 

 we are told that in the Old Pennington Bank a floor of massive rock-ore 

 from 8 to 16 feet deep underlies 50 feet of a covering, consisting of wash 

 ore and scattered lump ore intercalated between white variegated sandy 

 clays ; and that in the West or New Pennington banks the deposij; con- 

 sists of a surface soil with a little ore 5 to 10 feet thick ; then wash ore in- 

 terstratified with layers and masses of white, brown and red tight clays 

 and loose sands from 50 to 80 feet, and a floor of red rock ore underlying 

 all. 



My own belief is that when pumping machinery of adequate power 

 comes to be applied to these deposits, and an approved system of mining 

 adopted, many hundred thousand tons of ore will be raised, and sent to 

 the eastern furnaces at a living profit. 



The southwest ward extent of the deposits is unknown. But on the 

 southwest of the ravine and hill spur beyond it a pipe-ore and a good 

 deal of "barren ore" mark the continuation of the Pennington outcrop 

 through D. Bronstetter's fields, and then across Gyer's farm. It is cut 

 by a gap ; and then is again visible crossing Weight's farm, and (on the 

 west land line) reaching to the hill-top. Hence to the Juniata it is hard 

 to trace ; but becomes visible again west of the river in Sinking Valley. 



No. 3. Beck Bank (marked "nameless" by mistake in the Key 

 List on the large map). 



The eastward extent of the Pennington deposit has not been carefully 

 explored ; but at the entrance of a R. R. cut, half a mile east of the Old 

 Pennington Bank, Huntingdon furnace mined ore 10 years ago. This 

 Bank shows 40x30X5=4000 cubic yards of excavation, with water in 

 the tloor, and wash ore walls, rather lean in quality and quantity, as now 

 visible. 



No. 4. New Town Bank, also called Beck's (and so designated on 

 the large map), lies If mile east of Old Pennington Bank, and was 

 worked for Bald Eagle furnace, and abandoned for want of pumps to 



