Appendix— Geological Survey. 
485 
North from this last mound, “ I find no more iron ore above, or in the sand¬ 
stone, but along the Black river, and on the streams running into it, I find in 
the azoic rocks, which are here rising gently from beneath the sandstone, 
iron-stained belts traversing the slate rocks. In places, these iron-stained 
rocks, (or, what would express it better), rocks impregnated with the oxide ot 
iron, are decomposing into a red clay that maybe burned into good ochre for 
paint, or that can be used to great advantage as flux for silicious ores. In 
fact, there are places where it is so highly impregnated as to become almost 
an iron ore. A good example of these impregnated slates may be seen at the 
mouth of Hall’s creek, on the -west side of Black river, or specimens of this 
material can be seen in the cabinet of specimens at Madison. A little further 
north, at a mill owned by Mr. Arthur Campbell, and about six miles to the 
north or northeast of Black River Falls, — for the river is bending around to 
the east of north here,— we come on to what appears to be the north side of 
these slate rocks. Near their junction with the granitic rocks, they are trav¬ 
ersed with large quartz veins, some of them very much stained with the 
oxide of iron, and affording, in places, strong indications of ore. About a 
mile north of the mill, and near the half of a mile west from the river, on a 
little stream that runs into it, is what appears to be a ledge of hematite ore. 
I say what appears to be, because the surface and sides of the bluffs here are 
so covered with surface accumulation and vegetation, that it is impossible 
without actual mining to find out what there is. But by digging away the 
surface material I found in several places good specimens of ore, (red hema¬ 
tite) mixed, however, with considerable quartz. This quartz, with the ore, and 
other vein like material, has but very little pitch, indeed it is standing almost 
on its edge; what it will amount to, is impossible to tell without opening it 
up. The indications are good, and there are good specimens of ore here, 
which is all that can be said of it for the present. In a new country like 
this, it is almost impossible to find out what it does possess, or to give any¬ 
thing like a correct idea of what little we do see. 
North from this place, we enter on the centre, or granite portion of this 
belt. This portion I have already referred to in connection with kaolin 
beds. Here the indications of iron ore cease. 
It would seem from the indications here, that from this place to Black 
River Falls, a distance of six or seven miles, we have what may be called a 
metalliferous belt, that is, a belt of country impregnated more or less with 
iron ore, and in which good deposits will occasionally be found; and pos¬ 
sibly it may extend eastwardly along the south side of this granite belt, in 
connection with those slates, and gneiss, and gneissoid rocks peculiar to this 
side of it. Impressed with this idea, I extended my observations east from 
the deposits at Black River Falls. About six miles to the east, there is another 
mound of iron ore similar to those already described, only perhaps a little 
larger. This mound is, I should judge, about a mile in length east and west, 
or nearly so, and about a half or three-quarters of a mile wide at its base, and 
over 100 feet high. I may not be very correct in my estimate, from the fact 
that it was one of those very warm sultry days when every mosquito was on 
