ORES OF THE PRIMARY ROCKS. 
563 
hundred feet above a marsh, with a steep declivity, and might easily be wrought to that depth 
without drainage, by driving an adit level to intersect the vein. 
About half a mile south-southwest is another opening by the road side, where some ore 
has been dug; but it is lean, and much intermixed with the gneiss rock. 
About three-fourths of a mile south-southwest of this is the Denny mine. It is about two 
and a half miles east-northeast of Warren’s tavern in Phillipstown, in a straight line on one 
of the crests of the eastern ridge of the Highlands. The ore seems to have been injected 
among the rocks. In some places it forms regular stripes on the surface of the rock, parallel 
to the line of bearing ; in others, there are scarcely any indications on the surface, while ex¬ 
tensive masses exist a short distance below. This cap of rock over the ore is frequently 
called by the miners a rider, and the ore below, the horse. The mine now at work north of 
the house, is about thirty feet deep, and the vein of solid ore twenty-five feet wide, overlaid 
by a cap or rider of rock which contains but little ore. The position of the ore, the cap or 
rider, and thin strings of ore on the surface, are indicated on PI. 5, fig. 7. Most of the ore 
is very compact and pure, but some contains hornblende. Much of the felspathic rock con¬ 
tiguous to the vein is injected with thin veins of ore from one-eighth to one inch thick. Two 
hundred yards south-southwest is another opening, from which much ore has been taken. 
This place has been excavated to a depth of sixty feet, and the vein is twenty to thirty feet 
wide. Twenty thousand to thirty thousand tons of ore at least have been removed. 
Contiguous to this opening is another thirty feet deep to the water, with a sheet of rock 
five or six feet thick, between two divisions of the vein (Vide Plate 5, fig. 8). The rocks on 
each side of the vein are more or less injected with thin veins of ore. From examining the 
locality, many suppose that the ore has been injected into the cracks and crevices of the rock 
when broken up by some upheave. This ore is delivered at the Coldspring furnace, and at 
the wharf at Coldspring, for three dollars per ton; and mined as it is, scarcely any profit 
can be realized at this price. The quantity mined here is six hundred tons per annum.* 
The Coalgxove mine is about one or one and a half miles south-southwest of the Denny 
mine; it is in gneiss. The vein is narrow at the surface, but at the depth of twelve feet it 
is four feet wide. The ore is of an excellent quality, very rich, and well adapted for the 
forge, and will undoubtedly make an excellent iron. The distance from this mine to the fur¬ 
nace and Coldspring landing, is less than from the other mines.t 
The Gouverneur mine is about one and a half miles south-southwest of the Coalgrove 
mine, and four miles east of the Phillips manor house, at the southeast corner of the “water 
lot.” The ore is much intermixed in the rock, but would perhaps work well, mixed with 
other ores to flux out the felspar and other minerals. It may probably be purer farther down- 
* Mere holes are dug de«n in this ore bed or immense vein of iron ore, and water accumulates unless pumped out, or drawn 
out by a tub and whim. By the present mode of mining, two men, a boy and horse, are required te tend the whim for drawing 
up water and ore ; when if properly worked, the same quantity of ore could easily be wheeled out by one man or boy, or carts 
could enter the mine and load, and dispense with this kind of labor entirely. A small and short adit level from the hill-side east 
of the mine, would lay the ore bed dry for a hundred feet or more in depth for a considerable distance, 
t The Kemble mine is a short distance north-northeast of the Coalgrove mine, and on Phillips’s vein. 
71* 
