866 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 



samples from near Vinton Station, as exceptionally high in silica, the 

 average is only 3.76 per cent. 



The Baird ore is sometimes called the " limestone ore," and has by 

 some been regarded as the equivalent of the ore of that name in the 

 Hanging Rock District. In no respect do the ores resemble each other 

 except in th^ oolitic structure and this is an exceptional feature in the 

 Hanging Rock ore. It must be conceded that we have as yet found no 

 ore of this class having any considerable range in the Coal Measures of 

 Ohio, or of the Coal Measures of any western State, which possesses so 

 high an average quality as the limestone ore of the Hanging Rock Dis- 

 trict. It has been smelted for the last fifty years, and the iron made from 

 it, whether by charcoal or raw bituminous coal, has always been of a very 

 superior character, and has commanded the highest market price. 



The Baird ore, like most of its class, is in a relatively thin layer, and 

 can not be economically mined by drifting — certainly not at the present 

 prices of iron. This limits the mining to stripping along the outcrop, a 

 fact which will of necessity limit the number of furnaces dependent 

 upon its use. 



Between the Baird ore and the Nelsonville coal we almost always find 

 more or less ore, but in the Hocking coal field this is generally in a 

 nodular form. In the region of the Baird Furnace I have seen this ore 

 in a thin, continuous layer, but quite sandy in quality. On lower 

 Monday Creek, and on Snow Fork, the ore is in flat discs, which contain 

 coal plants in a state of beautiful preservation. The same nodular ore 

 is seen under the Nelsonville coal, near the mouth of Meeker Run. Dr. 

 C. Briggs, one of the members of the Corps of the first Geological Survey 

 of the State, called attention to this ore in his Report in 1838. The 

 section, already given, taken on the hill back of the Bessie Furnace, 

 near Straitsville, shows a gray carbonate of iron, twenty-six feet below 

 the Nelsonville coal, and nine feet above the clay containing the equiva- 

 lent of the Baird ore. The place of this carbonate is above Coal No. 5. 

 In this horizon there is in other parts of the State much ore. It is more 

 often nodular, but sometimes passes into, heavy masses of black band. 

 Two analyses have been made of the nodular ores found eight or ten feet 

 below the Nelsonville coal, the first sample from Snow Fork, analyzed 

 by Prof. Wormley, and the other from near the mouth of Meeker Run, 

 by Prof. T. S. Hunt. 



