190 THE IRON ORE DISTRICT OF EAST TEXAS. 



Mountain, is situated on the south side of the W. H. Watts headright. This 

 hill has an areal extent of about three hundred yards in length and one hun- 

 dred yards in width, and an elevation of one hundred and ten feet. The 

 summit of the hill is covered with a deposit of buff crumbly ore and ferru- 

 ginous sandstones, measuring from three to six feet in length, and widths 

 varying from two to five feet. The deposits of ore on this hill do not exceed 

 two and one-half to three feet in thickness. The otherwise precipitous sides 

 of this hill are divided into four benches or steppes. These benches are 

 covered with large blocks of ore which have apparently slipped or fallen down 

 from the summit of the hill. Many of them have been completely turned 

 over in their descent, and now lie in positions showing the sandstone which 

 usually covers this class of ore lying underneath the block. 



On the W. J. L. Scott headright the hill forms a broad, level plateau, the 

 highest portion of which, near the Myrtle Head school house, is covered with 

 a deposit of gray sand about twelve to fifteen feet in thickness. In ascend- 

 ing the hill on the west side, a broad bench is passed over before reaching 

 the school house. This bench also appears on the road leading southeasterly 

 towards the village of Fincastle. The bench on both sides of the hill is cov- 

 ered with blocks of broken buff crumbly ore, showing a thickness of a little 

 over two feet. The uniform quality and elevation of these blocks of ore 

 show them to be the broken outcroppings of a similar deposit of iron which 

 passes through the plateau and underneath the gray sandy deposit crowning 

 its highest points. 



A series of small hills occurs on the Juan Jose Martinez headright around 

 Fincastle Postoffice. These hills are all rounded in form and rise to sharp 

 peaks. All of them contain iron ore of the same quality and thickness as the 

 other hills already described. 



Beginning a little to the south of Fincastle, on the E. Cazanova headright, 

 and extending southwesterly through the southwestern portion of that sur- 

 vey and covering the whole of the A. H. Caldwell headright and part of the 

 D. M. Dickerson and Alfred Benge headrights, the ore is contained in two 

 almost parallel ridges. Near D. M. Dickerson's house the ridges unite and 

 form one high ridge, terminating in Pilot Hill or Buffalo Ridge on the south 

 side of the Alfred Benge headright, near the Anderson County line. Pilot 

 Hill has an elevation of over one hundred and eighty feet above Caddo 

 Bayou, and is covered with a deposit of over thirty feet of gray sand, which 

 also covers the higher portions of these ridges. The ore deposits in these 

 ridges appear in their relative positions of about one hundred and forty feet 

 above the creeks which flow at the western and eastern bases. 



The ore of this region is all of the buff crumbly variety and is overlaid 

 with a thin deposit of ferruginous sandstone. Some large blocks surmount 



