204 F'. REPORT OF PROGRESS. E. W. CLAYPOLE. 



The Hamilton fossil ore bed. 



This ore bed. an account of which has already been given, 

 follows in its outcrop rhe line between the Hamilton sand- 

 stone and upper shale, and may be traced by means of that 

 line upon the map. It cannot be called a valuable ore bed, 

 yielding, as it does, not more than 25-35 percent, of metal- 

 lic iron. Yet were a market readily accessible, or the price 

 of iron higher, there are several places in the township 

 where it might be profitably mined for mixing with the 

 richer kinds of ore. During and even after the war, when 

 prices ran high, this ore was taken out in several places, but 

 these have been gradually abandoned and there is no place 

 in the township where it is now mined. 



The Hamilton fossil ore bed enters the township from 

 Oliver at the northeast, and zigzagging with the sandstone 

 crosses the road from Newport to New Bloomfield near the 

 bridge over Inoculate run at the north end of the narrows. 

 Here its presence is plainly indicated by the fossil evidence, 

 but the ore bed itself is thin or absent. Thence it ranges 

 \V. S. W. along the N. N. W. front of the Buffalo hills, 

 where it has been exposed at several places, on Mr. Toomey's 

 land for instance at the north end of Dorran's narrows. It 

 lies for the most part, perhaps altogether, in the woods 

 above the cultivated land and about 300 to 500 feet south 

 of the outcrop of the richly fossiliferous Fenestella shales 

 which may be traced all along the valley at intervals. It 

 has not been opened at any other place along this line, ex- 

 cept on the Little Buffalo at the junction of the roads near 

 Pine Grove school-house, where a drift has been run in 

 along the course of the bed and some tons of ore extracted. 

 Nothing, however, has been done here for years. 



The second line of the Hamilton fossil ore in Centre town- 

 ship comes in from the east north of another PineG-rove 

 school iii Miller township ; it runs along the south side of 

 Mahanoy ridge. Little has been done t<> prove it along this 

 line. An attempt was made by Mr. Reeder some years ago 

 at the south end of the gap near the fulling mill, but ap- 

 parently the results were not promising. All the indica- 



