26S 
GEOLOGY OF NORTH CAROLINA. 
Sulphur, 0.09 
Phosphoric Acid, trace 
Water, 0.15 
Silica, 0.83 
100.94 
On Bear Creek below Marshall, near the French Broad, there are sur- 
face fragments of magnetite in hornblende slate, but no vein or bed has 
been exposed. On the eastern fork of Big Laurel there is a large outcrop 
of a slaty granular magnetite at Mrs. Norton’s, and near Jewel Hill abed 
or vein of specular hematite in a reddish felspathic gneiss, the ore said to be 
abundant. About 5 miles west of Ashville a bed of limonite of several 
feet thickness has been opened. There are hand specimens of magnetic 
ore in the Museum, brought from the eastern part of Buncombe county, 
but no outcrop has been reported to me. There is a range of limonite 
ore-beds associated with the limestones of this county, which follow them 
from Cane Creek across and up the French Broad into Transylvania. 
In Haywood county, there is a larger massive outcrop of granular 
magnetite; it is in the northeastern part of the county on Wilkins’ 
Creek. The bed is no doubt large, from the boldness of the outcrop, 
which projects in large masses above the surface. 
There are also magnetites and hematites in various localities of Jack- 
son and Macon counties, some of which are represented in the Museum 
by very fine specimens, and the deposits are reported to be extensive, but 
as no iron has beeu made in those counties, there has been no occasion, 
for their development. Mr. Smith has some observations on the ores of 
this section in the Appendix, p. 115 et seq., to which the reader is re- 
ferred. 
Iron Ores of Cherokee . — There is no other county in the state which 
contains so much iron ore as Cherokee. It is all however of one species, 
limonite. The marble beds of Yalley River and Notteley River are 
everywhere accompanied by beds of this ore. There 6eem to be gen- 
erally 2, 3 and 4 parallel beds of it, one or two of which are frequently 
slaty and micaceous, — a limonitic mica slate, and the others cellular con- 
cretionary, &c., and (the most western, generally) oehrcous. The breadth 
of this iron and marble range is 2 to more than 3 miles. The trough 
which has been scooped out by the rivers, in a northeasterly and south- 
westerly direction, owes its existence to the destructible beds of limestone 
and their associated soft mica-schists and hydro-mica slates and shales, 
which occupy this tract. The direct valley range is about 24 miles in 
