360 
[Assembly 
Besides the magnetic ore, there occurs, in Lewis county, two other 
ores of oxide of iron, both of which are intermediate in age to the pri- 
mary rocks which contain the magnetic ore and the Potsdam sandstone. 
These ores are the specular or ohgiste iron and the red oxide, a variety 
of the hematite. 
So far as the third district has been examined, these ores have only 
been met with in the northeast part of Lewis county, and as yet but in 
small quantity. It would appear that their geographical range, in the 
third district, corresponds with their range in the second district, both 
being confined to the north and eastern slope of the primary region. 
The specular or oligiste is the next kind as to age. It differs from 
the magnetic by its powder being red, though it is black in the mass. 
It does not occur in the granite and gneiss, but with highly crystalline 
limestone. In all places where I met with this ore in the county, it is 
in masses, either without any determinate form, or more or less wedg- 
ed shaped, and invariably limited as to quantity. When first discover- 
ed, there seems to be the promise of great abundance, so large are the 
masses, which are free from all other mineral or extraneous matter ; 
but soon a locality is exhausted, disappointing the high expectations 
entertained of its richness. This is the same kind of ore which has 
given so much celebrity to the island of Elba, and to Framont in France, 
from the great beauty of their specimens. This ore contains more oxy- 
gen than the magnetic, and less oxygen than the next or third kind, the 
compact red ore, or the hematite. 
The third kind is a variety of the hematite, being compact and not 
fibrous in its structure. It is red in the mass and red in its pow^der. — 
It is more or less mixed with the specular ore, and from having nume- 
rous cracks or separations, it is usually coated with fine scales of the 
red iron froth of the Germans. In every place where I saw the red 
ore, it was connected with siliceous and with steatitic matter, rarely 
with carbonate of lime, unless associated at its lowest part with specu- 
lar ore. 
It is but recently that the red ore has been discovered in Lewis coun- 
ty, and though it cannot have an extensive range as to location, yet near 
to Lewisburg furnace there is the appearance of abundance. At the 
place in question, the thin mass of quartz conglomerate, which forms 
the bottom part of the low ridge of Potsdam sandstone, shows that the 
