40 



THE STAT;FA''8 CHf^EK AND 



or soriietliing soft l)doAv it. llie ore is vory compact brown hematite, full of angular 

 grains of white translucent quartz of the size of peas and smaller, so numerous as to 

 reduce the iron contained in the unwashed ore, perhaps to thirty-fiN'e ])er cent or 

 thereal30uts. 



About 350 yards east of the Thomas bank is the llardbarger ore l)ank on the 

 same bed apparenth'. It is a hole about fifteen feet deep and thirty feet wide, east 

 and w^est, on the side of a hill, exposing a lai'ge surface of the ore at the northern end 

 of the hole ; but the dip cannot lie easily made out. The ledge of ore (bi own hematite) 

 is broken by cracks in every direction into lumps that are often as much as two or 

 three feet thick, and all the ore is full of angular bits of fine grained buff" sandstone, 

 making a breccia of it. It is said that some of it was used for making iron in the 

 blast furnace, and after washing made as good iron as the oi-e from any of the other 

 banks of the Thomas tract, contrary to expectation. It is quite likely that the ore 

 taken from here came only from the top of the bed, or from the bottom of it, and that 

 a moi'e thorough exploration by digging across the whole thickness of it, would bring- 

 to light ore more like that of the Thomas ore bank. The surface of the ore now ex- 

 posed is about parallel to the course of the bed, so that nothing can be deteraiined 

 from it as to the real thickness of the bed. 



This bed apparently is opened also at the Eoan ore bank at the roan tree corner 

 of G . H. Williams' land, onl};^ about a quarter of a mile east of the eastern boundary 

 of the Thomas tract, on the northern slope of the Wolf Pen Ridge (a spur on the 

 north side of Brushy Mountain), and opposite the eastern end of Minton's Ridge. 

 The opening is but a small hole, a yard or two across and about a yard deep, opened 

 long ago and long since abandoned and fallen in ; and there is no evidence whether 

 the solid oi-e bed w^as struck, but it is likely that only the loose lumj)s near the out- 

 crop were found. They are still to be seen scattered about on the hillside around the 

 opening, and show that the ore is a compact brown hematite; but some of it (per- 

 haps all) is filled with small white translucent quartz grains like the ore of the 

 Thomas bank, exce})t that the grains here seem to be all nearly as small as a pin's 

 head ; and the richness of the ore seems to be about the same as at tlie Thomas bank. 

 There is of course no clue to the thickness of the bed. 



The same bed too seems to be opened imperfectly on the Henderlite tract by thi'ee 

 small holes about forty yards apart, from which only loose, outcrop lumps were taken, 

 at the north side of Brushy Mountain, a hundred yards east of the road at the 

 western boundary of the tract, and three quarters of a mile south southeast of the 

 forks of Staley's Creek. At the two lower openings the ore is a fine honeycomb^^d 



