464 GEOLOGY OF OHI, 
with a discussion of the ores and fluxes, will appear elsewhere in the 
part of this report treating of furnaces and modes of smelting. 
The Tuscarawas Region. 
This region, as is shown by the table of furnaces, is at present 
represented by but two furnaces in operation, one at Massillon and one 
at Canal Dover. 
The ore of the region is the famous blackband deposit, the fuel 
the Massillon coal, which is used raw in the furnace. 
The ore forms one of the most remarkable deposits of the Ohio 
Coal Measures; it has been known and used in this district for over 45 
years, and large developments of it have been made. The limits and 
extent of the deposit will be found defined and discussed in the report 
on iron ores. 
The beneficial results which have attended smelting the hard 
crystalline ores of Lake Superior, etc., with the argillaceous ores of the 
Coal Measures, would render the importation and mixture of these ores 
with the blackband a very important addition to the resources of the 
region. 
The blackband is a black bituminous shale, containing so much 
iron as to make it valuable as an ore. In appearance it resembles the 
ordinary black shales of the Coal Measures so closely, that one not 
familiar with its peculiar features would be very easily misled as regards 
its true character. Its specific gravity, however, is comparatively high. 
In weathering the blackband changes to a grayish color, and breaks up 
into thin laminae or scales, which resemble most anything rather than 
an ore of iron. By testing their weight, however, their great specific 
gravity will suggest their ferriferous character. 
The ore is subject to great variations, both in thickness and quality, 
and, though its average thickness may be stated as about 10 feet, it is 
sometimes cut out entirely by sandstone, but sometimes it attains the 
thickness of 16 feet. Not unfrequently it passes into a bituminous 
shale, valueless as an ore, and at other times becoming thin, is repre- 
sented only by an accumulation of kidney ore. In some localities it is 
associated with a caleareous iron ore, whose position is immediately 
above the blackband. This calcareous ore, which elsewhere is a non- 
ferriferous limestone, has been extensively mined in eastern Tuscarawas 
county, as on the property of the old Zoar Furnace, in Fairfield town- 
