Chattanooga Paper - The Utilization of the Iron and Copper Sulphides of Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee

The sulphuretted ores of Carroll and Grayson Counties, Va., Ore Knob, Ashe County, N. C., and Ducktown, Tenn., in their general position, are in the prolongation of the same massive deposits. The existence of the extensive ore-bodies has been well-established, not only in a practical way, but by the careful research of a number of men of science, including Dr. T. S. Hunt, Professor Kerr, Dr. Genth, Rogers, Safford, Professor Egleston, Dr. H. E. Colton, the writer, and others, and described in one or more of the volumes of our Transactions, as well as in other publications. The greater quantity of' these ores being pyrrhotite, although much of them carry nonmagnetic disulphide, their reduction on the gronnd will probably lead to better results than an attempt to mine and ship them to distant places; and their use as sulphuric acid producers, to be employed in the cheap manufacture of valuable fertilizers, will be chiefly the subject of this paper. The great deposits of Carroll County, Va., are now nearer to railway transportation than any of the others, being six to eight miles from the Cripple Creek extension of the Norfolk and Western Railway, now being constructed, the grading of which is in an advanced state of completion. I am not able to state what are the present prospects of an early completion of the contemplated line of railway to Ducktown. For a long while, during the time those deposits were mined and reduced for their copper, the works were forty miles from any railway ; and the same may be said of Ore Knob, N. C. The deposits in Carroll and Grayson Counties, Va., being now the most accessible to cheap transportation, will naturally claim the greater part of our attention ; though it may be pertinent to remark, just here, that the ores of Ducktown, like those of Carroll and Grayson, Va., exist in the undecomposed levels as iron and copper sulphurets, much of which is a non-magnetic disulphide, as stated, with occasional exhibits of sulphides, such as covellite, erubescite, etc. There are, now and then, small quantities of silver, lead, and zinc,