IRON MINING IN CONNECTICUT. I. ORES AND ORE-BEDS. BY W. H. C. PYNCHON. IT T is rather a pleasant change to turn from the geological features of Connecticut which are of scientific interest only, to those other geological features. which are of general interest - which not only concern the structure of the region itself, but are intimately connected with the life of its inhabitants and with the development of its industries. This twofold interest is possessed in a marked degree by the iron deposits of Connecticut. Our forefathers found that their promised land, like the Canaan of the Israelites of old, 66 was a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass." The industries connected with the mining of copper, which flourished in Connecticut until the opening of richer fields in other parts of the United States made the undertaking unprofitable, have been fully treated in a previous article in the Connecticut Quarterly by Mr. E. M. Hulbert. Accordingly, these papers simply undertake to give a short sketch of the rise and decline of the iron industries of the State, which at one time had a wide spread and well deserved fame. Although it is a temptation to begin at once with the early history of iron smelting in the "land of steady habits," it may be well to stop a moment to consider briefly the conditions under which the irons occur and the chief steps in the process of the reduction of ore to pig*Vol. III. No. I. iron and of pig-iron to wrought-iron or to steel, in order that we may see just what problems presented themselves to the new world disciples of Tubal Cain. Native Iron, that is, metallic ironiron as we commonly know it—is of the very rarest occurence on the earth. Most of it is to be found in meteorites and is therefore not of terrestrial origin. Small grains of it have been found in basaltic and other related rocks, while masses found imbedded in similar rocks at Ovifac, Greenland, supposed at one time to be of meteoric origin, have since been fully proved to be terrestrial. makes the sum total of occurences of native iron, as far as known. This As a matter of fact, metallic iron has such a strong tendency to unite chemically with other substances, notably oxygen, that it is only in combination with these that we find it, and the work of the iron-smelter is to break up these compounds and to isolate the iron from these substances with which it is united. Even then we have difficulty in keeping it pure, for as soon as it becomes wet it rusts; that is, it begins to take up oxygen again and to return to the form of a compound. Iron ore, then, is simply iron in natural chemical combination with other substances, and the various iron ores receive different names in accordance with the different substances with which in marshy places and often containing very considerable organic remains is commonly known as bog iron or bog ore. The yellow ochre of the painter is a powdered limonite, and the yellow rust which forms when iron is exposed to water is simply a return of metallic iron to this ore. These ores are all oxides of iron, the next most common form is a carbonate. Siderite or Spathic Iron Ore. This is a compound of iron, carbon and oxygen, giving 62 per cent. of the pure metal. It is usually brownish or yellowish and, to the ordinary observer, suggests anything but an iron compound. It looks more, perhaps, like an impure limestone. superiority of Salisbury iron for special Of the several varieties of iron ore found in Connecticut, the most important on account of its quantity, accessibility, and the excellence of the iron produced is the so-called brown hematite, a hard Very impure clayey or earthy forms of dark form of limonite. Of the three these last three ores are rather indiscriminately known by the name of clay ironstone. It should be remembered that the proportions of iron given above for each mineral are the proportions for absolutely pure ore. Earthy impurities may exist in great quantity immensely modifying the percentage of metal. It must not be understood that these are the only iron minerals that occur, but these are the principal ores which are the source of the metallic iron of commerce. The ore deposits of Connecticut lie principally in the western part of the state and extend over into the neighboring portions of New York and Massachusetts. These deposits many years ago gave rise to a most flourishing industry along the general line of the Housatonic river, until the iron produced in that region had a reputation above that of the iron from any other section. ing of new deposits in portions of the country, where conditions The open were vastly more favorable to a cheap production of metal, long ago carried the center of the industry far from New England. But the towns, Salisbury, Sharon and Kent, within which this ore has principally been mined, the former has the more important deposits. In fact, these are the only beds from which ore is being taken at the present day. The town of Salisbury occupies the extreme northwest corner of the state and has been probably more identified with the iron industry than any of the neighboring towns. It contains within its limits three beds of brown hematite of which the bed at Ore Hill, or, as it is quite as often called, "Old Hill," is by all means the most important. This bed lies to the southwest of the village of Salisbury and hardly more than a mile from the New York state line. In former times it was worked as an open quarry, there being quite a number of " pits" carried into the side of the hill. The first ore was taken from this bed probably between 1730 and 1735 and it has been worked constantly ever since. In 1837 Dr. Shepard states that the amount of ore raised during the previous forty years averaged about five thousand tons annually. At that time the * * "Report of the Geological Survey of Connecticut." By Charles Upham Shepard, M. D. 1837. |