THE STERLING IRON MOUNTAIN.
Sterling Mountain is situated at the outlet of Sterling Lake. It rises from three to four hundred feet above the lake, and its eastern side displays one vast mass of black oxide, of unknown thickness. Enough can be seen, however, to justify the assertion that it is practically unlimited, and contains ore enough to supply the entire wants of the nation for centuries, or perhaps we might say, without exaggeration, that all the anthracites of Pennsylvania might be exhausted to reduce it.
These vast deposits of ore are found on what is known as the Sterling estate, formerly in possession of James Alexander, or Lord Sterling of Revolutionary memory. It subsequently belonged to the Townsend family, who worked it as an iron estate for a long period. Perhaps it is the oldest iron establishment in the United States which has not been abandoned or brought ruin on its possessors.
Recently this estate, which is about thirty miles square and contains 22,000 acres, has been purchased by the Sterling Iron & Railway Company, composed principally, we believe, of enterprising Philadelphians, among others we may mention our great financier, Jay Cooke, and the President of the Company, J. B. Moorhead.
This company are developing the Sterling estate on a scale commensurate with its extent and value. A railroad has been constructed from the iron mountains to connect with the New York & Erie Railroad at a point twenty miles north of Piermont, on the Hudson River. This new railroad is seven and a half miles long, making the railway transportation from the mines to Piermont twenty-seven and a half miles. When this ore is brought to the Hudson River it is open to the markets of the world, and may be taken across the ocean as ballast and there manufactured into iron. But the chief market for this ore will be on the Schuylkill and the Lehigh, since the empty canal boats which bring down coal may be loaded with despatch at the wharves of the com pany and return With their freight of magnetic ores to the anthracite furnaces on those streams. The Sterling Iron & Railway Company have constructed 150 cars for the
transportation of their ore, and have made a contract with the New York & Erie Rail way Company for the transportation of full trains direct from the mines to Piermont, at which place they have made extensive arrangements for shipping ores, which will be direct from the cars into the boats. These arrangements will enable the company to ship 100,000 tons the first year of their business ; and as the demand increases for ore the supply can be increased to almost any extent.
The following analysis, by Messrs. Booth & Garrett, of Philadelphia, gives the con stituents of this ore, and the yield of metallic iron.
One ton and fifteen hundred-weight of this ore will produce one ton of pig iron; to reduce which one ton seven hundred-weight of pure coal, with five hundred-weight of limestone, should be sufficient.
The cost of quarrying the ore cannot exceed 50 cents per ton, and its transportation, under ordinary circumstances, would not exceed 21 cents per ton per mile: hence it can be delivered at Piermont for $1.20 per ton,—or, with profit to the company, at $2.50 per ton under ordinary circumstances ; while the cost of transporting it in return coal boats would not be greater than the transportation on coal,—say, under ordinary prices, from $2 to $2.50 per ton. It is thus evident that this ore can be used at our furnaces with economy.
The rocks of this region are classed by Professor Hitchcock and others as corresponding with the Azoic rocks of Sweden, and the ores are ranked with those of the celebrated Danemora mine. The rocks consist of crystalline granitic gneiss, crystalline or saccha roid limestone, hornblende, and micaceous slates. The ores are accompanied with bands of felspar, or are enclosed in crystalline limestone, associated with garnet, augite, hornblende, thallite, and calc-spar. The rocks and ores are stratified in beds, and dip to the southeast at an angle varying from 30° to 50°.