15. SPRING TOWNSHIP. F\ 341 



Though no attempt has been made, to my knowledge, to 

 prove the ore along the ridges of Oriskany sandstone, run- 

 ning west from the Perry furnace, yet the superficial indi- 

 cations are abundant near the point named in the preceding 

 paragraph for two miles or more, and the ground is very 

 favorable for its extraction. 



Again, along the south side of the high ridge running- 

 southwest from Little Germany, which is, strictly speaking, 

 a continuation of Bell's hill, ore has been taken out and 

 washed within the last two or three years and sent to New- 

 port. It is needless to add that this enterprise did not pay 

 and was soon discontinued. Continuing eastward along the 

 same ridge, or rather system of ridges, the ore occurs again 

 nearer to Little Germany, especially on or near the farm of 

 Mr. Reepson and Mr. Dunn. I am not aware of its having 

 been proved nearer to Elliotsburg, but there is no improba- 

 bility in the belief that it would be found if sought. 



The Marcellus black shale, {VIII.) 



Spring township affords the best exposures of these beds 

 that I have seen in Perry county. Near Little Germany, 

 on the north road to Elliotsburg, is a quarry from which 

 the black shale has been very largely taken for mending the 

 roads in the neighborhood. It forms excellent road metal 

 as is readily perceived by any one driving in that part of 

 the township. The syncline at the west end of Mahanoy 

 ridge exposes the Marcellus shale over a great space, reveal- 

 ing a small anticline coming in from the west, probably the 

 one which runs up the valley and is cut through by the 

 fault. Some of the lower and more solid beds are here cal- 

 careous, but have yielded no fossils except the minute 

 sporangia which have been described from the same beds in 

 other places. * But the blackness of these shales has deluded 

 several of the inhabitants of the hamlet into the belief that 

 coal must be found if a hole were driven in far enough, and 



*See papers by Orton A Dawson in the Proceedings of the American Asso- 

 ciation for 18S2 and 1883. 



