SMITH COUNTY. 213 



2. NODULAR OB GEODE ORES. 



These ores are not so well developed as the laminated variety, nor do they 

 occur in such extensive deposits. They are always associated with sandy or 

 sandy clayey deposits and rest conformably with them. The strata of sand 

 and clay are always much cross-bedded and have thin seams of hard pan and 

 thin ore running in every direction through them. The ore itself lies in dis- 

 continuous beds, which vary in thickness from a few inches to six "feet, and 

 occurs in perfectly rounded, honeycombed, or many chambered masses. 



The last named variety, called septarious ore from its many chambers and 

 partitions, is found in red sandy clay, and it nearly always has its chambers 

 filled with red clay. While this ore occurs in the same kind of formation as 

 the geode ore proper, its form points to a different origin. The clay and 

 sand in which it is found are always much cracked and cross-bedded. Iron- 

 bearing solutions have penetrated these cracks and along the planes of cross- 

 bedding and deposited hydrated peroxide of iron, which forms the walls of 

 the chambers, and the clay being thus incased in prison walls retains its 

 original character. 



Localities. — Two miles southwest of Starrville a very fair grade of geode 

 ore was seen. It lies in discontinuous masses, the nodules varying from six 

 inches to three feet in thickness. It is associated with red mottled clays and 

 sandstone. (See ore No. 6 in table of analyses.) On the Eustacha New- 

 berry survey, south of Winona, geode ore occurs on the surface, and still 

 further south of Winona, on the Lawrence headright, a very good bed of 

 geode ore was seen. This bed is about six feet thick, the geodes being 

 about six inches in diameter. 



Other localities are McNeely headright and north of G-arden Valley and 

 east of the Neches River. 



3. conglomerate ores. 



The conglomerate ore is nearly always, though not invariably, found on 

 the lower hills, in close proximity to running water. This ore is occasionally 

 met with alongside of the laminated variety, which is found at an altitude of 

 about one hundred feet above them, though this is rarely the case. Con- 

 glomerate ores owe their origin to the breaking up of the older deposits of 

 iron ore, the detritus from which has been redeposited by running water; 

 the detritus being composed of pebbles of iron ore, quartz, fragments of hard- 

 pan, and occasionally pieces of silicified wood, all of them varying in size 

 from a buckshot to several inches in diameter. 



These pebbles are as a general thing cemented together by silica, though 

 in some cases oxide of iron performs this function. Water, carrying in solu- 



