ORES OF THE PRIMARY ROCKS, 
571 
much used; iron sound; has been generally used as a flux, mixed with hard black oxides and 
refractory cold short ores ; it assists fusion, and improves the quality -of the iron.”* 
The Smith mine was opened in 1828, about one and a half miles south of Kronkite’s land¬ 
ing, between the Crow’s Nest and Butter hill. The ore is native magnet. The bed or vein 
is three or four feet thick, and dips with the gneissoid rocks in which dt is contained. It was 
worked by Mr. Smith of Fort Montgomery, who dug some tons of the ore. It has been 
abandoned for reasons unknown. The ore of the ore beds of the Highlands is every where 
associated with gneiss, or granitic gneiss and hornblende. 
Magnetic oxide of iron is also found of good quality in many places in Cornwall; but these 
have not been opened to much extent. Near the foot of Butter hill, on the land of Mr. Clarke ; 
on Deer hill, on the land of Mr. Luke Wood, and that of Thomas Titus, are indications of 
valuable deposits of this ore. 
“ The most westerly of the great ore deposits now wrought, is called the Clove mine. It 
is the property of George Wilks, esquire, situated about a mile south of the village of Monroe. 
It has been open many years, and much ore has been used. The ore is the magnetic oxide. 
It is compact and granular-; the latter is called short ore. The pyrites is more or less dis¬ 
seminated through i-t. It makes red or hot short iron. It requires roasting before it can be 
used. At the south end of the mine exists what is here called soft ore ; this is the ore in a 
black powder. It is taken up with the shovel, ready for use, requiring no roasting process. 
It would seem to have resulted from the decomposition of the pyrites, and is abundant. The 
solid ores of this mine are in layers, having the direction and dip and alternating with the 
rock. The layers are from a few inches to a yard and more in thickness. Several successive 
layers, and the intervening ones of rock, have been penetrated in three places, a few rods 
distant from each other. A large quantity of the soft ore has been used. Altogether the 
mine has been opened about five hundred feet in length, and evidently extends over a much 
larger surface in all directions. The immediate associates of this ore are mica, hornblende, 
quartz, felspar, asbestus, occasionally carbonate of lime, serpentine, chrome crystallized in 
octohedrons ; the latter, however, is rare. A kind of soapstone is also connected with this 
ore,”t 
The country around this mine is so much covered by a mantle of drift and quaternary de¬ 
posits, as to render it difiicult to trace out any thing very exact in relation to its geological 
associates. Granite, or granitic gneiss, was observed just on the eastern side of the bed of 
ore, which is stratified in vertical strata, and composed of magnetic oxide of iron, more or 
less mixed with pyrites and hornblende. In some parts of the mine the strata between those 
of the ore are gneiss, more or less loaded with grains of the magnetic oxide of iron. Prof, 
Beck has described well characterized hematite as associated with the magnetic oxide. I saw 
none of these ores associated, though it was observed at some little distance to the north, 
under the gravel beds. Beds of grey limestone are to be seen a little west of the limonite or 
• Dr. Horton, Third Annual Geological Report of New-York. 
72* 
t Ibid. 
