TUSCAKAWAS COUNTY. 79 



Three miles west of Phillipsburg a deposit of blackband is leased and 

 mined by Mr. H. Andemann, and the ore is also found in some other hills 

 in the vicinity. Farther south, on the farm of Jacob Rheinhart, I 

 noticed the characteristic outcrop of the blackband in the road near Mr. 

 R.'s house. No exploration has, however, been made in this vicinity to 

 determine its thickness and extent. 



Still further south, in Salem township, west of Port Washington, are 

 deposits of blackband ore, which have been already shown to be quite 

 extensive, and some of them have been worked for a long time. The 

 more important of these have been purchased by the Glasgow-Port 

 Washington Iron and Coal Company, an organization of Scotch capital- 

 ists, attracted by the resemblance of the ores of this region to those of 

 their own country. 



They have erected two large and fine furnaces, and but for the depres- 

 sion in the iron trade would now be producing a large quantity of first- 

 class iron. The purchases made by this company are supposed to in- 

 clude more than one hundred acres of blackband territory, and it is evi- 

 dent that if suitable fuel can be prepared from Coal No. 6, which is here 

 from five to seven feet in thickness, this will become the theater of an 

 active and successful iron industry. 



The southern limits of the blackband area have, up to |he present 

 time, not been well defined, and it was until recently supposed that no 

 important deposits of it existed south of the Tuscarawas. Extensive ex- 

 plorations have, however, been lately made by Mr. A. Wilheimi, in 

 Oxford township, which have resulted in the discovery of " basins of ore," 

 which rival in extent and value any before known. These are all loca- 

 ted within two or three miles of what is called Post Boy Station, on the 

 Marietta, Pittsburgh and Cleveland Railroad. The several tracts con- 

 trolled by Mr. Wilheimi and his associates are supposed to include one 

 hundred and fifty acres of productive ore ground, where the blackband 

 varies in thickness from three to nine feet. All these tracts are within 

 easy reach of the railroad, and it may be confidently expected that a 

 large contribution will be made from this district to the wealth of the 

 county. 



I am informed by Mr. Wilheimi that in his explorations for blackband, 

 in Oxford township, he discovered, by boring, an important body of ore 

 unknown elsewhere, lying from forty to fifty feet below the blackband 

 stratum. He reports it as a light-gray silicious ore, shown by analysis 

 to contain thirty-nine per cent, of metallic iron, and consisting of closely 

 approximating layers or plates, having an aggregate thickness of from 

 three to nine feet. 



