HOCKING VALLEY, 675' 



roast easily, and the blue, in roasting, changes to a black oxide. The- 

 dark ore yields, on analysis, 41 65-100 per cent, of metallic iron, and the 

 blue 25 per cent. — the latter containing lime enough for a flux. Its 

 horizon is just below the Norris coal. It has, sometimes, a limestone 

 i)elow it, and shows, in other places, one foot of ore. 



The character of this ore indicated its identity with the shaft ore of 

 Trimble township and the limestone ore of Shawnee, but its supposed 

 position a little above what was regarded as the Norris coal, was incom- 

 patible with this conclusion. Adrift into the hill shows that it has 

 fallen much below its true horizon, and while this mass of ore was found ' 

 at the base, its proper place is at the top of the Mahoning sandstone. 

 The coal here called the Norris, being now recognized as on the normal' 

 horizon of the Great Vein, this ore falls readily into its proper place, and; 

 its identity with the Shawnee limestone ore, Ewing's shaft ore, and An- 

 drews' "Sour Apple" ore, which he locates a little above the Mahoning 

 sandstone, may be regarded as established, and these may all be called' 

 the Moxahala ore. On Section 10, Pike township, it is, by the barom- • 

 eter, sixty-five feet above the coal, and is exposed one foot thick ; an excel-, 

 lent, compact, nodular ore, mainly a sesquioxide, resting on a fire-clay. • 

 Parties are here engaged mining the ore, by stripping, under an agree- 

 ment to deliver to the Ohio Iron Company, of Zanesville, fifty thousand 

 tons. It pays a royalty of fifty cents, and the cost of mining is ninety 

 cents per ton. All the openings here made on the proper horizon dis- 

 close the ore in sufficient thickness to be profitably mined, and of good 

 quality. On the Moore farm, the ore is in moderate sized nodules, run- 

 ning through four feet of shales. A non-fossiliferous, compact limestone, 

 of good quality, is to be seen in the neighborhood on the same horizonj 

 but its thickness was not determined. 



On the Bennett farm, Section 9, Monroe township, several openings 

 have been made in an ore which I regard as the equivalent of the Besse- 

 mer ore. It is here from seventy-five to eight}'- feet above the Great Vein, 

 and at the openings visited measures respectively 2-|, 3, IJ, and 3 feet. 

 It is in hard, compact, grey nodules, forming a nearly solid mass of good 

 ore, much of it well oxidized, consisting largely of the sesquioxide. All 

 the hills in the neighborhood are reported to contain it, and the open- 

 ings visited indicate its presence in large quantities. 



The Iron Point ore has been opened, so far as I can learn, in only a 

 few places, although its general presence is indicated. The Moxahala 

 ore below it is so largely developed and of so fine a quality that it has 

 attracted much more attention. At Moxahala an opening has been made 

 in a stratum one hundred and sixteen feet above the Great Vein, which 



