Bil (Lesley. 
Tennessee, past Moccasin Gap, back of Saltville, past Sharon Alum 
Springs, to Hunting Camp and Kimberling Creeks, and so on, eastward, 
across New River towards the James River country. No doubt some 
sections of this line hold the ore bed in a lean and, perhaps, unworkable 
condition ; but it is quite incredible that other sections will not have it 
1871.) 
both thick and rich. 
Now it is along this Poor Valley and its outcrop of iron ore that Gen. 
Haupt locates the line of railway. 
Even if the Clinch River line be adopted, for the sake of the coal and 
for other reasons, a branch road must certainly be made up Hunting 
Camp Creek to the Plaster Banks, at Saltville ; and this branch will have 
the ore crop of Poor Vailey, and the ore deposits of Tumbling Run, on 
top of Short Mountain, at its command. It can bring the fossil ore for- 
ward to the Forks of Wolf Creek, where are the before mentioned large 
deposits of brown hematite ore ; and where it will meet the coal coming 
across from the Clinch River. Here, or somewhere lower down Wolf 
Creck, perhaps at its mouth, will probably be located one of the princi- 
pal future iron-works of Southwestern Virginia. 
THE PLASTER (@YPSUM) BANKS, AT SALTVILLE. 
A sound theory of the origin of the gypsum can be, for the present, 
our only guide to a correct estimate of its quantity, where it is known to 
exist, and to its discovery elsewhere. 
typsum may be produced by the action of free sulphuric acid on lime- 
stone ; or by the action of sulphuretted hydrogen gas on limestone. One 
or the other, or both of these agents combined, have acted on the lime- 
stone rocks along the banks of the N. Fork Holston River, from Saltville, 
eastward for a number of miles, converting them into gypsum. The 
acid, whether in a fluid or in a gaseous form, has undoubtedly passed 
along between the walls of the great fissure which has thrown the 
Lower Coal Measures of the Poor Valley (Little) Mountain 15,000 or 
20,000 feet down against the limestones ; has soaked into the walls of 
the fissure ; and has changed the limestone to gypsum for many yards 
on each side of the crack. Shafts have been sunk through solid masses 
of gypsum rocks thus formed to a reported depth of 500 and 600 feet, 
finding no bottom to the gypsum. 
The story of this shafting as given tome by General Bowen is as follows : 
3 ° ; ge 
Saltville. Up 8 the >. Holston River: oa y 
= nS ; § § 
» Ss 
Vs i ais % : 
< iy 7 ok 1 
Ves ee 88s ny £ 
B54 ee dah § % 
ads oa § 8 
sbis3 s g S x 
Ss & 33 Y Ny a 3 Ry 
aA BS 3 Sak i) x 
5 : 
Per Cua Smiles. Lr about 70 miles Pitino 
ve ; 
Ea 
a 
s& 
us 
§ 
