COPPER ORE. 451 



The origin of the copper is not from volcanic sources. It is not a vulcanite, 

 but it is a neptunite, and was precipitated from the sea water at the time of 

 the deposition of the strata. There is no evidence anywhere in this entire 

 region of volcanic upheavals since the time of the depositions of the Permian 

 beds. These beds lie almost horizontal against the Wichita Mountains on 

 the north, and no veins of igenous material have been found traversing the 

 country in any direction. 



The copper lies in beds parallel with the strata, which dip at a small angle 

 to the northwest. It lies generally in beds of blue clay, which are themselves 

 highly impregnated with copper. There are three distinct horizons of this 

 copper in the formation, separated by several hundred feet of intervening 

 strata. The lowest is found in the Wichita Beds of the Permian, which are 

 the lowest beds in the formation. It is found in greatest abundance in Archer 

 County, and extends in a northeast direction, crossing Red River near the 

 mouth of Cache Creek, the locality where Capt. Marcy first made the dis- 

 covery of the copper. 



Another deposit is in the lower part of the Clear Fork division of the Per- 

 mian formation, and is found on California Creek, in Haskell County; at 

 Table Top Mountain, in Baylor County, and other places in a northeastern 

 direction. The farthest point south at which I have seen this bed of copper 

 clay is a few miles east of Buffalo G-ap, in Taylor County, near where the 

 Permian beds pass beneath the overlying beds of the Cretaceous. 



The other horizon of the copper beds is in the Double Mountain division of 

 the Permian, and occurs at Kiowa Peak, in Stonewall County; Buzzard Peak, 

 and Cedar Mountain, in Knox County; at the head of Raggedy Creek, in 

 Hardeman County, and on the north side of Pease River in the same county. 

 The ore at all these places has much the same general appearance and much 

 the same mode of occurrence. 



At the centre of Archer County the principal part of the ore occurs in two 

 forms. One that of pseudomorph after wood and the other in round nuggets. 



The pseudomorph ore lies embedded in a blue clay in the form of logs of 

 wood, and may at one time have been wood, but now has been transformed 

 into copper. Six thousand pounds of that material taken out of the mines at 

 one time averaged sixty per cent of copper. 



That this material was once logs of wood and other vegetable material I 

 judge from the fact of having found logs of petrified wood that were partly 

 iron, partly silica, and partly copper. I have found many leaves of ferns in 

 the sandstone that were transformed into copper. At one place I found a 

 small petrified vertebrate animal that had been transformed into copper. 



The nugget ore lies also in the blue clay, and is obtained by digging into 

 the clay where they occur like digging potatoes. The miners for that reason 



