416 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 
older furnaces, viz., Baird’s, Gore, and Bessie. There are still large 
bodies of ore from these several horizons that have been described, 
under deep cover in the hills, but present conditions of iron-making 
forbid the mining of these shallow seams, except by shallow stripping. 
To work them in drifts adds not less than 50 per cent. to the cost of 
production, and the product cannot bear the tax. It does not therefore 
seem possible that the native ores of the valley can ever again hold as 
prominent a place in the iron-making of the valley as they have thus 
far held through its short history. very year brings Lake Superior 
and other great sources of iron practically nearer to this field, and 
while these native ores may long be sought in small amounts to impart 
certain. particular qualities that are desired in the iron to be produced, 
the furnaces will soon come to place their main dependence on high 
grade foreign ores, relying upon the valley for the purest and best iron- 
making coal of the State. 
6. Iron OreES OF THE HANGING Rock DISTRICT, INCLUDING THE 
CouUNTIES OF VINTON, JACKSON, GALLIA, SCIOTO 
AND LAWRENCE. 
The district which is now to be considered is by far the most im- 
portant of the Ohio field in respect to the production of iron ore. Blast 
furnaces were established here more than 60 years ago, the entire ore 
supply of which was derived from the adjacent furnace land. Not only 
have these first established furnaces been maintained in uninterrupted 
activity for the most part, but many new ones have been built from time 
to time, and the iron manufacturing interest has come to be recognized 
as, next to agriculture, the most important of the district. All of the 
earlier furnaces, and many of the later ones, are charcoal furnaces, the 
organization of which is as follows: 
There is attached to each furnace a large body of land, often con- 
sisting of several thousand acres, from which the whole furnace stock, 
ore, flux and fuel, must, as a rule, be derived. Certain main horizons 
furnish the chief supply of ore, but every addition to this supply is wel- 
comed. No indication or “blossom” is neglected or left unproved. 
While this state of things is true at all of the furnaces, there is special 
stress laid upon the discovery of ore seams at such of them as are 
situated outside of the main ore belts. The westernmost furnaces, as a 
rule, have the most precarious supply, and it is upon the western margin 
J 
