Lesley.] <4: [Jan. 2 and Tab 6, 



The height of the walls of the various excavations may be seen by 

 reference to the ten foot contovir lines in fig. 37. These also show that 

 the ground now so deeply excavated once formed a high divide between 

 a vale descending southwest to Spruce Creek, and a corresponding but 

 shallower vale descending northeast to the settling-dam hollow. It looks 

 as if the ore once filled both these vales, but has been excavated by the 

 natural drainage into Spruce Creek, from the one which descends 

 in that direction, and, perhaps from the valley of Spruce Creek itself, 

 down to and beyond the Furnace. 



The entire walls of the cuts are of wash ore, and it is all torn down 

 and taken to the washing machine. But the tops of pyramids of solid 

 pipe ore are exposed in the floor, and some reached to, or nearly to the 

 sod above. At one of the deepest places in the floor, 60 feet below the 

 sod a shaft was sunk 40 feet further through solid pipe ore, and then 

 limestone, and was stopped by water. Water does not stand in the 

 present floors on account of the free circulation, at a still lower depth, 

 through crevices and caverns communicating with Spruce Creek, which 

 itself issues from a cave. 



The books at the Furnace show as an average for some years, 6 tons 

 of wash ore to 1 ton of ore ; 2 tons 1 cwt. of ore to 1 ton of iron ; and 

 $2.35 per ton of ore delivered at the Furnace, represents the cost of min- 

 ing, inclusive of all expenses. 



I shall give in an appendix, the opinion of Mr. Harden on some prac- 

 tical points which I requested him to study, for which purpose he visited 

 some of the Banks described above. 



Outcroppings of ore occur east and west of the Pennsylvania Furnace 

 Banks on the southei-n slope of the anticlinal ridge facing Spruce Creek 

 and- the Tussey Mountain ; but no excavations have been made, because 

 sufiicient stock was always procurable at the Banks near the Furnace. It 

 is not to be supposed, therefore, that equally large and important de- 

 posits may not be exposed by future systematic mining operations, when 

 the completed railway shall make demands on this ore belt for supplying 

 the furnaces of Eastern and Western Pennsylvania. 



Some of these surface- shows of ore are near the top, others near the 

 bottom of the hill slope. The ore surface is commonly high up on the 

 slope, or on the flat rolling back of the anticlinal ridge. 



John Ross has in his fields, north of Pinegrove Mills, ( miles east 

 of Pennsylvania Furnace,) an old funnel shaped hole, from which very 

 rich pipe ore was taken, and more can be seen in its sides, but no surface- 

 show ; and I have no data on which to base an estimate of quantity. The 

 ore was sent to Monroe Furnace ; was rich ; but very red short : lumps 

 of pyrites being visible in the bombshell ore lying about the hole ; which 

 is also coated with white sulphates. 



Surface ore can be traced all the way from Ross' to Pennsylvania Fur- 

 nace, but no search underground seems ever to have been made or called 

 for. 



