ECONOMICAL GEOLOGY. 
267 
gneiss, syenite and doleryte, much decomposed superficially. Other 
larger deposits are said to exist near the head of the same stream. Near 
Bakersville, also, I have seen small outcrops of limonite. 
In Ashe county, in the northwest corner of the State, there are some 
important ore deposits, on the waters of North Fork of New River. 
They lie chiefly north and northeast of Jefferson, on Horse Creek, and 
Helton Creek. On the former creek there are two beds of ore, both 
coarse, granular, highly magnetic and polaric, in gneiss and syenyte. 
The gangue is largely pyroxene and epidote. One is on a high moun- 
tainous ridge, some 500 feet above, and on the west side of the creek, and 
two miles from the river, at Hampton’s ; the other on the east side, at 
Grraybill’s. Both are traceable man} 7 rods by numerous surface fragments 
which indicate beds of considerable extent. 
On Helton, six or eight miles east of the last, are still larger deposits, 
of very pure magnetic ore, which has been long used in the forges of the 
neighborhood. The ore is a coarse-grained and very pure magnetite, one 
of the beds of which is reported to be eighteen feet in thickness and 
another nine feet. This is manifestly an iron region, and worthy of a 
thorough investigation. 
There are many other localities in this region from which hand speci- 
mens have been brought to the Museum ; as for example, Cove Creek in 
Watauga, which has furnished both magnetite and limonite, and the neigh- 
borhood of Flat Top Mountain, where a titaniferous ore is found. 
Iron Ores of the French Broad . — There are several localities on the west- 
ern slopes of the Black Mountain, on the head waters of Ivy, in the eastern 
edge of Madison where magnetite is found in considerable surface masses, 
though no explorations have been made. A bed also of titaniferous iron 
occurs here near the public road, and about midway between Ashville and 
Burnsville. The prevalent rock of the region is gneiss, with much horn- 
blende slate and syenyte. There are many fragments of this ore of con- 
siderable size along the steep slope of a mountain spur. It is very hard, 
lustre resinous, color black, fracture snbconclioidal. The analysis is as 
follows (Hanna) : 
Titanic Acid, 37.SS 
Protoxide of Iron, .... 37.06 
Sesquioxide, 11.03 
Sesquioxide of Manganese, 0.S9 
Alumina, 9.51 
Lime, 2.57 
Magnesia, 0.93 
