era in the iron manufacture was thus introduced, and an immense increase in the production soon followed, as the charcoal furnaces gave place to larger ones constructed for anthracite. The Lehigh valley, lying on the range of the iron ores toward the southwest, also produced large quantities of ore, which, however, was almost exclusively hematite. Hence, an interchange of ores has been largely carried on for furnishing the best mixtures to the furnaces of the two portions of this iron district; and the operations of the two must necessarily be considered together. The annual production, including that of the bloomaries of New Jersey, has reached, within a few years, about 140,000 tons of iron. But in a prosperous condition of the iron business this can be largely increased without greatly adding to the works already established, while the capacity of the iron mines and supplies of fuel are unlimited. The proximity of this dis- Magnetic ores are found upon the Lehigh, trict to the great cities, New York and Phil- or South mountain, the margin on the south adelphia, adds greatly to its importance. of the fertile limestone valley which conPENNSYLVANIA.-Although about one-tains the hematite beds. These, howthird of all the iron manufactured in the ever, are quite unimportant, the dependence United States is the product of the mines of Pennsylvania, and of the ores carried into the state, the comparative importance of her mines has been greatly overrated, and their large development is rather owing to the abundant supplies of mineral coal conveniently at hand for working the ores, and, as remarked by Mr. Lesley ("Iron Manufacturer's Guide," p. 433), "to the energetic, persevering German use for a century of years of what ores do exist, than to any extraordinary wealth of iron of which she can boast. Her reputation for iron is certainly not derived from any actual pre-eminence of mineral over her sister states. New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and North Carolina, are far more liberally endowed by nature in this respect than she. The immense magnetic deposits of New York and New Jersey almost disappear just after entering her limits. The brown hematite beds of her great valley will not seem extraordinary to one who has become familiar with those of New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Virginia, and Tennessee. Her fossil ores are lean and uncertain compared with those of the south; and the carbonate and hematized carbonate outcrops in and under her coal measures will hardly bear comparison with those of the grander outspread of the same formations in Ohio, Kentucky, and western Vir

ginia." The principal sources of iron in the state are, first, the hematites of Lehigh and Berks counties-the range continuing productive through Lancaster, also on the other side of the intervening district of the new red sandstone formation. The ores are found in large beds in the limestone valley, between the South and the Kittatinny mountains; those nearest the Lehigh supply the furnaces on that river, already amounting to twenty-three in operation and four more in course of construction, and those nearer the Schuylkill supply the furnaces along this river. The largest bed is the Moselem, in Berks county, six miles west-south-west from Kutztown. It has been very extensively worked, partly in open excavation and partly by underground mining, the workings reaching to the depth of 165 feet. Over 20,000 tons a year of ore have been produced, at a cost of from $1.30 to $1.50 per ton.

of the great iron furnaces of the Lehigh for these ores being on the more extensive mines of New Jersey; while the only supplies of magnetic ores to the furnaces of the Schuylkill and the Susquehanna are from the great Cornwall mines, four miles south of Lebanon. An immense body of magnetic iron ore, associated with copper ores, has been worked for a long time at this place, at the junction of the lower silurian limestones and the red sandstone formation. The bed lies between dikes of trap, and exhibits peculiarities that distinguish it from the other bodies of iron ore on this range. The Warwick, or Jones' mine, in the south corner of Berks county, resembles it in some particulars. Its geological position is in the upper slaty layers of the Potsdam sandstone, near the meeting of this formation with the new red sandstone. Trap dikes penetrate the ore and the slates, and the best ore is found at both mines near the trap. Not far from York, Pa, an ore known as the Codorus Iron Ore has been raised for some years, but was regarded as almost worthless, but recent experiments have led to the discovery that it contains the exact ingredients necessary to make it the best of fluxes for reducing the other ores of that region to steel of excellent quality without any intermediate process. Along the Maryland line, on both sides of the

Susquehanna, chrome iron has been found in silurian limestones and sandstones along the considerable abundance in the serpentine valleys of central Pennsylvania, from the rocks, and has been largely and very profita- Susquehanna to the base of the Alleghany bly mined for home consumption and for ex-mountain, is accompanied through these valportation. It furnishes the different chrome leys with numerous beds of hematite; and pigment, and their preparation has been to the supplies of ore they have furnished carried on chiefly at Baltimore.

which in this vicinity is the first water, are occasionally developed, and these are bearing stratum for the wells.

specular iron and hematites, are traced across the midland counties of North Carolina, and have furnished supplies for furnaces and forges in a number of countiesas Lincoln, Cleveland, Rutherford, Stokes, Surry, Yadkin, Catawba; and Chatham, Wake, and Orange counties upon the eastern belt. The belt of ore from Lincoln county passes into South Carolina, and through York, Union, and Spartanburg

which they belong. Though of some local importance, they do not add very largely to the iron production of the state. Along the summit of the Alleghany mountain the base of the coal measures is reached, which thence spread over the western portion of the state, nearly to its northern line. The ores which belong to this formation are chiefly contained among its lower members, and found in the outcrop of these around the margin of the basin. At some districts. It crosses the Broad River at the localities they have been obtained in considerable abundance, and many furnaces have run upon them alone; but for large establishments of several furnaces together, they prove a very uncertain dependence.

Cherokee ford, and though the whole belt is only half a mile wide, it presents numerous localities of the three kinds of ore, and of limestone also in close proximity, and finely situated for working. Several other localiMARYLAND. The metamorphic belt crosses ties are noticed in the "State Geological this state back of Baltimore, and is pro- Report," by M. Tuomey, who remarks, on ductive in chromic iron and copper ores, page 278, that "if iron is not manfactured rather than in magnetic and specular ores. in the state as successfully as elsewhere, it is Some of the former, highly titaniferous, have certainly not due to any deficiency in been worked near the northern line of the natural advantages." In northern Georgia state, on the west side of the Susquehanna; the ferruginous belt is productive in imand at Sykesville, on the Potomac, a furnace mense bodies of hematite, associated with has been supplied with specular ores from its magnetic and specular ores, in the Allatoona vicinity. Several hematite beds within hills, near the Etowah river, in Cherokee twenty miles of Baltimore have supplied and Cass counties. This, which appears to considerable quantities of ore for mixture be one of the great iron districts of the with the tertiary carbonates, upon which United States, though bountifully provided the iron production of the state chiefly with all the materials required in the manudepends. Beds of these occur near the bay facture, and traversed by a railroad which from Havre de Grace to the District of connects it with the bituminous coal mines Columbia. In the western part of the state of eastern Tennessee, supports only six large furnaces were built at Mount Savage and small charcoal furnaces of average capacity, Lonaconing to work the ores of the coal not exceeding 600 or 700 tons per annum formation; but the supply has proved in- each. In Alabama, hematites and specular sufficient to sustain them. In 1853 the ores accompany the belt of silurian rocks capacity of the blast furnaces of the state to its southern termination, and are worked was equal to a production of over 70,000 in a few bloomary fires and two or three tons of iron. This, however, has never been blast furnaces. The fossiliferous ore of realized. the Clinton group is also worked in this state.

SOUTHERN STATES.-South of Maryland the same iron belt continues through Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia; and although it is often as productive in immense beds of the three varieties of ore-the magnetic, specular, and hematite-as in the other states along its range, these resources add comparatively little to the material wealth of the states to which they belong. Through Virginia, east and west of the Blue Ridge, hematite ores abound in the limestone valleys, and magnetic ores are often in convenient proximity to them. Many small furnaces have worked them at different times, but their product was always small. Three belts of magnetic ore, associated with

TENNESSEE in 1840 ranked as the third iron-producing state in the Union. The counties ranging along her eastern border produced hematite ores, continuing the range of the silurian belt of the great valley of Virginia; those bordering the Clinch river produced the fossil ore of the Clinton group, there known as the dyestone ore; and western Tennessee presented a very interesting and important district of hematites belonging to the subcarboniferous limestone in the region lying east of the Tennessee and south of the Cumberland river.* The

*"It is remarkable that most of these deposits