J:2 ^ THE STALEY'S cheek AND 



t 



Calculations of the amount of ore in tons above the lowest water level of the re- 

 gion for one foot of average thickness of the bed, like these made for the preceding- 

 beds, give : for tlie Brushy Mountain part of the bed 3,330,000 tons ; for the Pond 

 Mountain part, 1,590,000 tons ; in all, then, 8,020,000 tons per foot of bed. 



The Thomas Bank would indicate a thickness of ten feet at least for the bed ( re- 

 quiring these numbers of tons to be multiplied all by ten to get the full amount of 

 ore in the bed above water level, with a deduction on account' of the quartz in the 

 ore) ; and it is the only point where anything like the full thickness of the bed can 

 be seen. At the other points mentioned where the loose lumps of the outcrop have 

 been found on the ground or dug up, the abundance of the lumps is cpiite consistent 

 with such a^ thickness of the bed; but in the absence of any thorough ti'ial pits it is 

 impossible to tell what the thickness may be at those points. In order to form an 

 idea of the average thickness of the bed throughout the region, a numbei' of trial 

 pits should, of course, be sunk along the diti'erent outcrops so as to exjjose the full 

 thickness of the solid bed. 



DAY O K E B K 1). 



The Day Ore Bed also seems to have been opened at several points within the 

 region. The largest opening is the Day Ore Bank on the Thomas Tract about a mik^ 

 northeast of the Thomas Tract. That bank supplied Day's Forge, it is said, on the 

 South Fork of ITolston River, between the years 1700 and 1824, and after that 

 j^ichols' Forge, further up the same river. The ore has been dug from the outcrop 

 up along the side of the hill by an open cut a hundred j^ards long and about twenty 

 feet wide and fifteen feet deep. At the lower end of the cutting the lumps of ore, 

 from three feet in diameter down, form a layer about a foot and a half thick, some 

 three feet lielow the grass on the northwest (up hill) side of the cutting, and are still 

 more abundant on the lower side. At the upper end of the cutting the solid, nearl}' 

 vertical hed of ore is exposed in part, and measures ten feet in thickness, hut the 

 southeastern surface is indistinct from its being broken up into lumps. The ore is a 

 beautiful l)rown hematite, vevj compact, yet containing many very small cavities ; but 

 it ap])ears silicious, and in the cavities are small quartz crystals or chalcedony, and 

 many parts of the ore seem to have fine sand intimately mixed with it ; and it is said 

 that on first working the bank there was a good deal of quartz in the shape of small 

 round pebbles mixed with the ore. 



This seems also to be the bed opened at the ore hank in the Flat, on the Thomas 

 Tract, about two-thirds of a mile southwest of the Day Ore Bank. The opening is 

 hole abont fifty yards long, northeast and southwest, and fifteen yards wide and 



