[Assembly 
as possible, and work towards the east, and to the right and left ; by 
this mode of procedure, all the water which would accumulate above, 
from rains, &c. will be carried to a lower level than the line of the 
workings. The whole business of mining, then, at this place, will 
consist in blasting and breaking the ore, all of which may be conduct- 
ed without engines of any description. Hence, as it regards expense, 
there probably never was a vein so favorably situated, and where so 
little capital will be required to obtain the ore, and transport it to the 
place where it is to be reduced. 
SECTION XVI. 
Freedom from injurious substances. 
One of the most remarkable facts which I have observed, in relation 
to the Sandford mine, is the entire freedom of this immense vein from 
pyrites, and also from any substance which is known to exert an inju- 
rious effect on iron. This circumstance, is probably in part to be attri- 
buted to another fact, viz : that the hypersthene rock is one which is 
far from being metalliferous ; scarcely any of the sulphurets or oxides 
appear in it, except the well known substance, the oxide of iron, where- 
as, gneiss, the adjacent rock, abounds in sulphurets of iron and many 
of the earthy minerals, and as a consequence, many of the veins of iron 
are more or less charged with sulphuret of iron. The ore of the Sand- 
ford vein, is one of the purest which is at present known, if we except 
the Arnold ore in Peru, but Avhich is not a hundredth part so extensive. 
SECTION XVII. 
Quality of the Iron manufactured from the Sandford Ore. 
As might be expected, the iron made from this ore has proved to be 
of the first quality ; and it is not only of the first quality, but is said to 
make fast. Whether it is of the same quahty as that which has been 
made from the coarse black ore, to be described hereafter, has not been 
determined. It is sufficient at the present time to say, that so far as 
trials have been made with it, it is equal to the best of the iron made at 
the forges in the northern section of the State. Experiment only can 
determine how good it is possible to make the product from this ore, 
and whether it has the properties which render it suitable for steel. 
The only foreign minerals present in the Sandford vein, are hyper- 
sthene, labradorite, hornblende, and common feldspar. These, though 
they exert no injurious effect on the iron, yet interfere in its reduction ; 
when these are present therefore, to some extent, it becomes nncessary 
