MINERALS 



419 



berg district near the Enoree river, South Caro- 

 lina.* 



"On the banks of the Ohio are found some very 

 fine marcasites* They are black, less ponderous 

 than the coal, and yet capable of giving fire when 

 struck against steel. Their structure is irregularly 

 foliaceous. In the fire, they yield a blue sulphure- 

 ous flame, and calcine into a purple powder. The 

 natives make use of them in blacking leather.'' t 

 Sulphurets of iron, are common in Pennsylvania. 



Zeafl?....The lead mines in Virginia (belonging to 

 the American Lead Mine Company), for many years 

 conducted by Stephen and Moses Austin, proprietors, 

 are situated in latitude 36 degrees, north-west from 

 Philadelphia 6 deg. 40 min. 100 miles south-west 

 from James River ; 45 miles west of the Alleghany 

 Mountain ; and on the banks of the great Kanhawa 

 River, opposite the mouth of Apple Creek, in an 

 elbow of which it is washed on the north and west > 

 about two miles in a semicircle. The whole of what 

 is called the Lead Mine Tract, contains about 1400 

 acres. About one-quarter of a mile from the river, 

 and along its banks, is a fertile plain, on which is 

 laid out a town, known by the name of Austin Ville, 

 on which place the Company's works are built. 

 The lead ore is dug from the mines, smelted into 

 pigs, and manufactured into shot and sheet lead on 

 the same spot, a circumstance which is not to be 

 met with in any other part of the world. The ore 

 hills adjoining the works are about three miles in cir- 



* Drayton's View of South Carolina, 

 t Harris's Tour to the State of Ohio. 



