474 Wisconsin state Agricultural society. 
is spent here in tracing up this float iron ore, and other indications, that was 
spent there in tracing up the float lead ore, that many extensive deposits of 
iron ore will be found. Our views in reference to the possibility of iron ore 
being found here, and of the nature of the deposits, need not be based alone 
upon indications and analogy. We have at Ironton, in the western part of 
Sauk county, and on what we should call the eastern part of this iron dis¬ 
trict, a type of the deposits of this district and an evidence of their existence. 
This deposit, a few years ago, was represented only by the “float” ore 
that lay scattered on the surface along the side of a large sandstone bluff that 
was covered with timber and underbrush. This “float ore” scattered over 
the surface was noticed by an experienced iron maker, and regarded by him 
as strong indications of an extensive deposit. The land being secured, these 
indications were followed up, which resulted in the discovery of the deposit 
in a protuberance or a gentle swelling out of the bluff, about midway from 
the valley to the top. The face of this deposit, before it was opened up, was 
covered with a stratum of brownish clay and earth mixed with fragments of 
iron ore, varying in size from a man’s head to that of a hazelnut. This stra¬ 
tum is several feet thick, and can be seen to-day on the sides and on the. top 
of this deposit. • . 
When first discovered, it was said to be by many a mere surface deposit 
that would yield only a few tons of ore, consequently little or no importance 
should be attached to it. This estimate of the deposit was not founded upon 
any peculiar phenomena that would lead to any such conclusion, nor upon 
a want of evidence to sustain the contrary, but grew out of, and consequently 
founded upon, a theory of the ore deposits of our state, published in an early 
day; a theory that regarded them as mere surface deposits of very limited 
extent. Nothing has done more to destroy confidence in our mineral re¬ 
sources, or to prevent their development, than this theory. This is true, not 
only of men outside of our state who are ignorant of the facts, but of men 
living in the state, in the midst of the facts. These are not men who 
think for themselves, and thus form an independent judgment in such mat¬ 
ters, but they are men who surrender their judgment to authority, without 
reference to facts. And to-day, facts even are looked upon by such men with 
suspicion when they come in conflict with this theory. 
It was fortunate, however, that this deposit fell into the hands of practical 
men, who paid but little attention to theories, but went to work with confi¬ 
dence in their own judgment; opened up the deposit, and made iron from it 
on the spot. And, although they had to cart the products of their furnace 
over the worst kind of roads, for twenty-five or thirty-miles, to a railroad, 
they made money at it. So little importance has been attached to this 
deposit that it is hardly known outside of the township, and yet we have 
here a bed of ore, in width 300 feet, and still extending south, in depth, or 
thickness in the center, 35 feet, averaging, for the whole width, twenty or 
twenty-five feet, with ore still extending down below their deepest works. 
There was taken from this deposit last year, and smelted in a small furnace 
near the place, thirty-five hundred tons of ore. And there has been dug out 
