ORES OF THE PRIMARY ROCKS. 
569 
mine was found in 1793, by John Ball. It yields about fifty per centum of iron good for 
casting, and malleable iron 
The Antone mine is a continuation of the same vein as the Crossway mine. 
The Patterson, Mountain, and Crossway mines seem to be the same bed of ore, but hove 
out of place by successive faults parallel to the strike, as is represented on Plate 5, fig. 10. 
The same rocks and minerals, and the same intervening sheets of rock in the ore, were 
observed. 
“ Sterling mines are about a mile southwest from Crossway mine, at the south end of 
Sterling pond. These mines, or this vast mine, is in the northern end of a mountain of 
moderate elevation ; its length is about three miles. The ore is rich, granular and compact; 
its product, cold short iron ; is one of the earliest known iron mines in the United States. The 
minerals connected with this ore are crystallized green hornblende, sahlite, green mica, flesh- 
colored felspar, and the ore in octohedral crystals. The rocks are granite, and a coarse 
showy sienite. There is abundant evidence of great disturbance in the stratification in this 
mountain, and in all the vicinity. The rocks dip to the northeast and east, with the ore 
conformable to this arrangement; at least such is the general arrangement, so far as can be 
ascertained in this mass of confusion. The ore alternates with the rock ; how often, cannot 
easily be ascertained. The ore lies naked about fifty rods wide by one hundred and fifty 
yards in length. In many places its surface is even and polished, as if it had been ground 
olT by the sliding of the rocks.”* 
The naked smoothed ore shows the drift scratches very distinctly in some places. The 
course was not measured, but it is believed from recollection that their course is nearly north 
and south, or north-northwest and south-southeast. 
“ Sterling mine, discovered in 1750, by whom unknown ; named after Lord Sterling, the 
then proprietor of the soil; he sold, and a blast furnace was immediately put in operation by 
Messrs. Ward and Colton, that is, in 1751 ; cost of mining is thirty-seven and a half cents 
per ton. Its yield is always fifty per centum, in the blast furnace. Amount of this ore used 
has ranged from five hundred to two thousand tons annually; the medium of this gives 
137,000 tons as the amount of ore used from this mine ; at present the amount used is two 
thousand tons. The ore always fuses easily; its iron is between cold and hot short, very 
sound and strong. It has been largely used for casting cannon, and for making bar iron. 
No proper dykes in the mine; it lays on the side of a mountain. The ore, in different 
places where opened, is from ten to twenty feet thick, inclining at an average angle of thirty 
degrees. The floor is smooth granitic rock, a little over three feet thick ; rests on another 
bed of soft rich ore, and the little used proves free of sulphur. (I may add from my own 
knowledge positively, that another immense bed underlays the last mentioned. W. Horton.) 
Sterling mine covers a surface of more than thirty acres, by survey ; part of this the ore is 
* Dr. Hobton, Third Annual Geological Report of New-York. 
Geol. 1st Dist. 
72 
