174 THE IRON ORE DISTRICT OF EAST TEXAS. 



Toward the southern end of the line in Van Zandt and Henderson counties, 

 although nodular concretionary ores are present in considerable quantities, 

 the lists of specimens obtained by Mr. Ladd and myself show a preponder- 

 ance of laminated ores of the buff crumbly variety, with some ferruginous 

 sandstones. Along the streams and watercourses crossing the line of ore 

 deposits in the whole of these counties there are several considerable deposits 

 of conglomerate ore. 



The analyses of these ores show them to carry from forty-three to fifty-six 

 per cent of metallic iron in the Upshur ores, and from thirty-nine to fifty-six 

 per cent in the Henderson ores. The Wood County ores are, as a general 

 thing, low in iron, only three of them touching as high as forty-five per cent. 



Two analyses have been made of the Van Zandt ores, but the metallic iron 

 in either does not exceed forty per cent. The ores found in these counties, 

 which, from the content of metallic iron, would be considered as of sufficient 

 value to work, contain the impurities sulphur and phosphorus in exceedingly 

 small quantities, and many of them might be considered of sufficient purity 

 to be ranked as Bessemer ores. The others are all within the limits necessary 

 to rank them among the ores suitable for the manufacture of steel by the 

 open hearth process. 



Among the Upshur ores the sulphur ranges from 0.02 to 0.37 per cent, 

 and in the same ores the phosphorus ranges from a trace to 0.38 per cent. 



The best ore of the Wood County collections shows a trace of phosphorus 

 only, and of the Henderson ores only two contain anything more than a 

 trace of phosphorus. Of these one of the ores from near Fincastle shows an 

 iron-phosphorus proportion of 0.22 per cent, and the other, an ore from 

 Battle Creek, has a proportion of 1.15 per cent. The other ores from this 

 county all belong to the Bessemer grade of ores. 



The workable ores of Wood County show percentages of 0.29 and 0.34 

 per cent of sulphur, and in Henderson County sulphur appears as traces only 

 in the whole of the ores analyzed, except one, in which that impurity amounts 

 to only 0.17 per cent. These ores can easily and readily be desulphurized by 

 washing, roasting or calcining as practiced in the ordinary methods of prepar- 

 ing such ores for the furnace. It will be noticed that every one of these ores 

 contains lime in greater or less proportions, some of the Upshur ores showing 

 as high as 2.30 per cent. 



While these softer limonite ores, when worked by themselves, have all the 

 characteristics of the East Texas iron ores, in that they produce a peculiarly 

 tough, durable iron, suitable for the manufacture of car wheels and all the 

 implements necessary for farming purposes, a judicious mixture of these lim- 

 onites with the harder magnetites of the Llano region would improve the 

 grade of pig iron and also steel which might be manufactured from these ores. 



