SUPPLEMENTAL REPORT—HOCKING VALLEY. 881 
pressicn—evidently an old world notion—that the iron in the heating 
furnace cinder had, by its second heating, been so burned that it was 
worthless. This has proved to be a mistake, for an intelligent iron 
manufacturer of Ohio, who had learned of the foregoing investigations, 
made a large quantity of iron from the heating cinder alone, and found 
the quality to be exceptionally good, and affirmed that the knowledge 
derived from these researches had been worth thousands of dollars to 
his company. Similar testimony has been received from others. 
I have, in the foregoing pages, given all the more important facts 
known to me concerning the Hocking Valley coal-field. The feature of 
the first importance is the Nelsonville seam of coal. While some of this 
coal is too sulphurous for the higher uses, the best coal of the seam is of 
superior quality, and has authenticated itself as suitable in an uncoked 
state for the blast furnace. The vast quantity of furnace coal here to 
be obtained at the very lowest cost of mining, will, I think, more and 
more invite attention to the region as a desirable district for the manu- 
facture of iron. For that class of iron, generally included under the 
name of foundry iron, the local ores will prove serviceable. For special 
uses, the iron will be improved by a mixture with Lake Superior ore. 
None of the ores of this field, found as yet in quantity, will serve to 
make pig-iron adapted to the manufacture of Bessemer, or Siemens Mar- 
tin steel. For steel, other ores, free from phosphorus, must be brought 
from the rich iron mines of the Lake Superior region and of Missouri. 
It is doubtful whether the northern ores can be brought to any 
cheaper fuel than the Hocking Valley coel-field affords. By the rail- 
roads now built, and others building from ports on Lake Erie, to the dif- 
ferent parts of this field, it is believed that the lake ores may be brought 
so advantageously that, at a day not far distant, that iron for Bessemer 
and Siemens-Martin steel will be made from the coal of this part of Ohio. 
Should the displacement of iron by steel continue at the same rate for 
ten years to come as in the ten years past, the demand for pig-iron con- 
taining phosphorus will be limited to foundry iron. Ohio has long been 
remarkable fer its production of the first quality of the latter class of 
iron. For more than fifty years the famous “lime-stone ore” of the 
Hanging Rock iron district, smelted with charcoal, has afforded a foundry 
iron of almost unequaled excellence. Whether in that district a suit- 
able quality of mineral fuel can be cheaply obtained, so that this finest 
of Coal Measure ores may be converted into iron in coming years, re- 
mains to be seen. The future supply of foundry iron will be derived 
from fields where, other things being equal, its manufacture is the cheap- 
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