THE IKON ORES OF EAST TEXAS. 69 



and on the north to within five miles of Jacksonville. Gent Mountain is 

 some three hundred feet above the Neches River. For the first two hundred 

 feet the slope is very rapid and then drops more gradually to the river. 



The following section on the slope of the plateau and just east of Gent 

 shows the occurrence of the ore: 



1. Gray or buff colored sand , 1 to 10 feet. 



2. Siliceous sandstone capping. 1 to 2 in. 



3. Brown laminated iron ore . . ' 2 feet. 



4. Indurated greensand with thin seams of clay and casts of fossils 45 feet. 



5. Coarse white clayey sand 20 feet. 



6. Dark blackish-brown sand, more clayey towards the base, nodules of 



rusty clay ironstone showing shrinkage cracks 31 feet. 



7. Brownish-gray sand to base of section 11 feet. 



To the west and northwest the Gent Mountain range is bounded by Gum 

 Creek, and beyond it the iron-bearing plateau again becomes broken up into 

 numerous flat topped hills and narrow ridges, extending from Gum Creek to 

 the International and Great Northern Railroad, and beyond. The railroad takes 

 advantage of this break in the main range to pass through the plateau coun- 

 try, and it is the only east and west pass in a distance of over twenty -five 

 miles. Among the most prominent of these isolated hills are Iron-Furnace 

 Mountain (the location of the old Young furnace), Gray's Mountain and 

 Grimes Mountain. Beyond we come to another iron-bearing plateau. It 

 begins in its southern extremity at Ragsdale Mountain, three miles west 

 of Jacksonville, and extends on the north to the old town of Larissa, where 

 again it is cut off by Killough Creek. This range is over six miles long, and 

 three miles wide in its widest part. On the east side it slopes off in a series 

 of fertile red and mulatto soils into Gum Creek bottom, which separates it 

 from the Mount Selman range. On the west slope of the plateau is a broad 

 fertile agricultural country, with soils similar to those on the eastern slope, 

 and reaching to the Neches River, a distance of five to eight miles. The ore 

 is of the same general character as that already described. It varies from 

 one to three feet thick, is capped with the usual one to three inches of hard 

 brown sandstone, and one to six feet of gray sand. The prosperous town of 

 Jacksonville is beautifully situated three miles east of Ragsdale Mountain, and 

 on the southwestern slope of the Mount Selman range. The International and 

 Great Northern Railroad enters the town from the southern end of the range, 

 and the Kansas and Gulf Short Line comes down the southwestern slope, 

 intersecting the International and Great Northern at Jacksonville. Go- 

 ing northeast from the town, the summit of the plateau is reached in about 

 one and a half miles. The ore shows itself in the gullies and breaks of the 

 mountain slope, and is of the same character and thickness as that described 



