The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-10-29
SOUTHERN IRON ORE MINING

fiuxing qualities and proximity to coal. |. In Alabama it is only in exceptional cases that ores run higher than 50 per cent; the brown ores. after washing, run between 40 per cent and 50 per cent, but the Clinton ores, which constitute the majority. run usually from 35 per cent to 40 per cent.
 In the matter of ore reserves for the fu- ture the south is particularly well off,
 most of the large companies have nscer-
 tained that they have ore for several hun- dred years ahead and have made no further effort to estimate tonnagea A
 we'll known Lake Superior mining engi-
 neer recently compared favorably the orc
 reserves in the Birmingham-B -Bessemer belt
 to the great Mesabi range of Minnesota.
 In addition, several other southern states
 are known ohave enormous tonnages of
 both red Clinton ore and brown ores mo-
 tably Tennessee Georgia and Virginia.
 As yet, most of the southern iron de-
 posits have not been opened up to an ex- tent which will be warranted in com
 paratively few years.
 The Clinton ore formation in Alabama
 occurs in ridges on each side of the great anticlinal valley known as Birmingham valley, extending northeast and south west. In places the red ore ridges are lacking on one side of the valley, usually the western, being cut out by faults.
 Where these faults occur are often
 gaps" such as Red Gap" and the
 railroads entering Birmingham valley use
 these gaps to get through the ridge In l -Is--
 bed are mostly on the eastern side and
 there also are practically all of the ore mines.
 Murphrees valley is an exception to this.
 the moderate dips and the iron mines be-
 ing on the western side
 While the ore seams are very persistent
 along the outcrop, which in Alabama must
 be as much as 50 miles, yet they vary
 greatly from place to place. being either
 too thin or too lean for profitable working
 in the greater part of this distance. In this connection it is interesting to note that iron ore is profltably mined in Ala
 bama in some cases where the seam Is no more than 2 or 3 feet thick
 Clinton ore Is so named from its typical occurrence in sedimentary rocks at Clin- ton, N. Y. It includes the structural va- rieties known fossil ore and oolitic orel the ore is red and greasy. like much of the Michigan ore, but is seen to be formed of small fossil shells with the lime replaced by iron or fiat grains with rounded edges about the size of seed. There are four main Clinton ore horizons or seams in Alabama, the Hickory Nut, Ida, Big and Irondale, the last being the lowest. They are comprised in section of the formation between 70 and 80 feet in thickness near the middle of the range.
 The Big Seam is the most important and the one most worked; 1t varies from Is to
 30 feet in thickness. but there Is usually only & to 12 feet of ore fit to mine. The ore of the Big Seam improves in quality
 toward the southwest, that is, toward
 Bessemer the percentage of lime increas-
 ing while that of silica decreases. The
 percentage of alumina remains about con-
 stant, but on account of the coming in of
 slate partings, more care has to be ex-
 ercised in mining. The lower portion of
 the Big Seam has not been worked ex-
 cept very sparinKly at the outcrop. being
 too siliceous, with the silica increasing from top to bottom of the seam. The other ore seams have been worked at places around Birmingham mostly in open pits or in a small way.