THE IRON ORES. 409 
quality, but they have already yielded many thousand tons of iron, and 
the supply is not exhausted. 
To the south of Moxahala, several large deposits of rough ore 
oceur at the same general level, but experience does not warrant us in 
assigning to them any real value as sources of iron. One of them is so 
high in phosphorus that it would serve a better purpose as a fertilizer 
than as an iron ore. 
In section 2, Ward township, Hocking county, on the Helen Fur- 
nace lands, a blackband ore has been opened and worked to the extent, 
at least, of several thousand tons. It lies 93 feet above the main coal 
(Middle Kittanning or No. 6). It carries a foot or two of coal above 
it (Upper Freeport or No. 7), and below it there is also a sulphurous, 
carbonaceous deposit that verges toward coal. The Lower Freeport 
coal also appears in the section. The ore ranges from 6 to 15 inches in 
thickness. It lies under comparatively light cover. When calcined it 
yields fully 50 per cent. of iron. It has been mined by drifts, and 
shows itself a persistent deposit, so far as it has been followed. It 
appears to hold a considerable area, being found in several tracts that 
are separated by valleys. It did not work as kindly in the furnace as 
could be desired, and since it cost as much, or nearly as much, as the 
Baird ore that the other furnaces of the valley were handling, it was 
found necessary to abandon its use, at least for a time. 
This completes the enumeration of the blackband deposits that are 
now worked or that have been worked in the Hocking Valley. The 
discoveries of these several basins have all been made by practical men, 
coal miners or ore diggers, and the first found were a source of surprise 
to the geologists who were best acquainted with the field. So long an 
intervah exists between the Tuscarawas blackband field and Perry 
county that there seemed good reason for believing that the iron-making 
stage of the Upper Freeport coal horizon had already been left behind. 
This new blackband field is by no means equal in value to the 
older one, but it made a notable addition to the iron ores of the valley. 
In the light of what is now known, it is clear that it has not been turned 
to the best account in an economic point of view. 
Two other ores of the Upper Freeport horizon have been worked — 
during the last few years in the Hocking Valley, though neither of 
them is the basis of present operations. They are known as the Buchtel 
and Straitsville ores, respectively. ‘The former belongs at the horizon 
