120 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Fisher hill mines belonging to the Port Henry Iron Ore Co., and 

 the Burt lot, of Witherbee, Sherman & Co. The ores are rather 

 lean but are of Bessemer grade. 



The pits are distributed across a horizontal stretch of lOO feet 

 at Fisher hill and 250 to 300 feet at the Burt lot. They dip about 

 25° westward, and are therefore something like 40 feet apart 

 vertically at the former and 115 feet at the latter. There are no 

 marked horizons of ore within these limits. At Fisher hill the 

 workings are 600 or 700 feet down on the incline, and at the Boirt 

 lot, 300 or 400. The railroad has been dismantled for 10 years past 

 and the mines have been allowed to fill with water. 



It is quite possible that the Fisher hill and Burt lot ores are a 

 reappearance of the Barton hill bed after a lean interval, and that 

 they mark a northerly continuation of > the latter. It is very 

 natural to infer these belts and especially are we prone to do so 

 in so far as the time-honored sedimentary conceptions of origin 

 influence us. The northern pits are double to a degree not shown 

 by the southern, and if we are influenced by the igneous views, 

 we may not feel justified in inferring the identity without proof of 

 the connection. The wall rocks are practically identical and the 

 general dip and axial trend of the pods correspond. 



To the east of Fisher hill and a half mile away upon the eastern 

 slope of a dift'erent hill is another great lens or pod now known 

 as the Smith mine, and actively worked by Witherbee, Sherman 

 & Co., through the Cook shaft. This pod was discovered by the 

 needle. It does not outcrop. It dips west and pitches south like 

 the others and furnishes a non-Bessemer ore much like Old Bed, 

 but lower in phosphorus. A vertical shaft taps the upper end of 

 the pod and then from the foot the two skipways fork and proceed 

 southwest, one going for about 1000 feet. The ore varies from 

 20 to 40 feet thick, and at the south drops over 600 feet below its 

 high point on the north. At the southern end is the old O'Neill 

 shaft, now used for pumping and in the fall of 1907 tapped by the 

 northern workings. 



Two hundred feet or so north of Cook shaft, is the Thompson, 

 long abandoned, and beyond this an interval of some distance with 

 no workings. Recently diamond drilling has, however, revealed 

 ore, which may in time be worked. The hill then abruptly drops 

 away to a small valley, on whose northern, side are two old mines, 

 the Hall and the Sherman, which were early discovered but which 

 have long been idle. The property has passed to Witherbee, 

 Sherman & Co., and has lately been drilled. Ore has been found 



