447 
1872.] [Lesley. 
mountain wall) being silicious and cold-short, and the upper series being 
argillaceous and red-short. The cove is nearly encircled by the cold-short 
deposits, which have been opened in a number of places, and a good deal 
mined, towards the head of the cove, for an old furnace further south. 
The red-short hematites are extensively spread out more in the middle of 
the cove, where they are capped by lead-bearing members of the Lime- 
stone formation. 
There are a few fertile farms in the cove; but an uninterrupted forest 
covers all the mountain country around it, most of which is included 
within the limits of the estate. : 
Greasy Cove is a large and nearly level limestone plain, more than 
twenty miles long by five miles wide, similarly surrounded by shale 
and sandstone hills nearly 1,000 feet high and backed by the State Line 
Range of the Unaka (Sub Silurian) Mountains more than twice as high. 
The Nolichuckee enters this cove from the mountain country to the south, 
and leaves it by a gorge, the south wall of which is a towering cliff of 
sandstone 500 or 600 feet in vertical height, called the Devil’s Looking 
Glass. It flows thence three miles straight north-northwest towards the 
mouth of Bompas Cove, where it makes an ox-bow, and then flows north 
to the Furnace, as shown in the map. 
This interval of three miles is made through forest-covered hills. 
Paddy’s Creek and Broad Shoals Creek form narrow forest-covered valleys, 
entering the river valley from the southwest. Another stream of equal 
size forms a similar valley on the northeast. All this is good coaling 
ground for iron-works; and depots of charcoal can be established at 
different points on the two banks of the river, down which the fuel can 
be safely and cheaply boated. Two large charcoal furnaces at Embree- 
ville could be erected in view of a constant supply of charcoal by the 
organization of an extensive system of coaling depots up the river. A 
forest surrounds the head of Greasy Cove and passes in an unbroken belt 
across all the hill country back of the river bottoms, over to the Dry 
Oreck Valley, and Buffalo or Cherokee Mountain, north-northeast and east 
of the Furnace. This is on the east side of the river. On the west side, 
as I have said, many square miles of forest-covered hill country surrounds 
Bompas Cove. 
This forest consists of white oak, spruce pine, poplar, hickory, ete., 
most of it in its original condition. Some tracts have been coaled off 
once, others twice. After fifteen or twenty years they are ready for coal- 
ing again. I saw a few trees two feet in diameter ; but the forest trees 
are lighter than I am accustomed to see in Pennsylvania. They will 
probably yield, on an average, 40 or 50 cords to the acre, while some 
ravines will go up to 100. 
The charcoal used at the Furnace is good and strong, but by the haul- 
ing over steep roads, and several handlings, the waste amounts to 25 or 
30 per cent. Most of this could be saved under a more extensive and 
complete organization of this part of the business, and by the use of 
