44 GEOLOGICAL REPORT. [ € i74 2 , 75 



portion of the State. But although in case of need, if cut off 

 from other States, Mississippi might manufacture her own iron, the 

 desultory mode of occurrence, and uncertain continuity of the 

 deposits, thus far found, of the purer kinds of ore. would not justify 

 their exploitation, so long as advantages so greatly superior are 

 offered in adjoining States, where inexhaustible beds of iron ore 

 and coal often occur in one and the same mine. 



The purest ore I have seen from this formation (a fibrous hema- 

 tite) is found in Mr. Null's neighborhood, N. of Iuka, Tishomingo 

 county. It occurs there in sheets and layers \ to 2 inches thick, 

 imbedded in yellow sand, and has been commonly mistaken for 

 copper ore. Average specimens yielded 55 per cent, of iron. 



74 2 . Materials for glass. — White sand has been mentioned as of 

 frequent occurrence in the Orange Sand formation. It is rarely, 

 however, free from clayey particles, and altho' applicable to the 

 purpose, such sand would not, as a general thing, be eligible for 

 making white glass, unless previously freed from them by wash- 

 ing; as is often done naturally by the streams traversing the sandy 

 regions, and more especially, by Pearl River and its tributaries, 

 whose drifts of white sand often vie in purity with those of St. 

 Genevieve in Missouri, whence the Pittsburg glass works receive a 

 large part of their supply. 



75. Waters of the Orange Sand Formation. — It has been 

 stated already that the waters percolating through the Orange 

 Sand formation, at the present time, are remarkable for the small 

 amount of the salts of lime and magnesia which they contain, and 

 may therefore be uniformly characterized as freestone waters. 

 Silica, and iron in the shape of proto-carbonate, are the ingredients 

 which at times appear in quantities sufficiently large to render the 

 water mineral. The former is rarely altogether absent : the latter 

 is sometimes contained in large quantities, but is very inconstant; 

 in wet seasons it often is more abundant than in dry ones, and at 

 times, chalybeate waters may be seen oozing out of every little 

 rill. Then again, springs which originally were chalybeate, cease 

 to be so after the land on which they are situated is cleared ; and 

 others lose their mineral properties so soon as they are cleared of 

 leaves and other decaying vegetable matter. In fine, they are 

 obviously dependant to a great extent, for their mineral properties. 

 on the accidental condition of the surface, and therefore unrelia- 



