52 GEOLOGICAL RECONNOISSANCE 



the forks, and half a mile below John Osburn's, on both sides of the creek. 

 The ore has been found, as yet, only in lumps and pockets, except in one 

 place, where some blasting has been done in the limestone forming the 

 bed of the creek. Here the ore was said to have been found in a solid 

 vein of 4 to 6 inches wide, though this statement is not corroborated by 

 John Osburn. Where I examined it, the work has been carried for a few 

 yards in a N. W. and S. E. course diagonally across the bed of the Jen- 

 nings 1 creek; but the excavations were, at the time of my exploration, 

 completely submerged, so that little opportunity offered for seeing the 

 vein, if such^exists; but about half a pound of lead ore was found dis- 

 seminated in detached pieces through the adjacent rock. Some diggings 

 and prospect-holes have been opened along the hill-side, in a north and 

 south course, but these are too shallow to enable any one to form an opin- 

 ion as to the manner in which the ore is disseminated or concerning the 

 true course of the ore-bearing crevice. All that can be said at present in 

 regard to this locality, is that the formation is similar to those in the north- 

 ern part of Marion, heretofore described, and the surface indications of 

 ore probably equally as good for mining as in that part of the country 

 from its head to the forks of the creek. 



About 200 pounds of lead ore were taken out of one of the holes dug 

 on the adjacent hill-side, three quarters of a mile above the forks of Jen- 

 nings' creek. Considerable lead ore was found in lumps and small frag- 

 ments by John Osburn, about a mile and a half northwest of the Molton 

 diggings. The prevailing character of the rock on Jennings' creek, near 

 the forks, is that of a close-textured, cherty, dark-grej limestone, very 

 irregular in its fracture and bedding, and often fragmentary. 



Below the forks of Jennings' creek, the rocks are mostly rugged ledges 

 of magnesian and other varieties of limestone, with some alternations of 

 marl and marly limestones, with frequent imbedded segregations of chal- 



cedonic chert. 



The principal Sewell diggings are 4 miles below the Molton diggings, 

 township 19 north, range 16 west, of the fifth principal meridian. 



Several pits and prospect-holes have been dug here in search of ore, 

 near the tops of the ridges, and two or three tons of ore obtained. In 

 some of the excavations crevices have been reached running in the mag- 

 nesian limestone, north 30 deg. west, and lead ore is found attached to 

 the wall-rock, and running in veins of about an inch thick. 



Mr. Sewell undertook to smelt about 4 tons of this ore in a rude log 

 furnace, but the greatest part of it oxydized and ran to slag and was lost 

 amongst the cinders and ashes. 



