USA > Utah > Salt Lake County > Salt Lake > Utah gazatteer and directory of Logan, Ogden, Provo and Salt Lake cities, for 1884 > Part 7
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In Cache County, at Smithfield, occur beds of micaceous hematite over sixty feet in thickness. Around Ogden, on the Provo, by Kamas, on the Weber, in Ogden Canyon, near Willard and Bountiful, in the Cottonwoods, Red Butte and City Creek Canyons, in Tintic, in fact all over Utah iron ore in all varieties is found. It accompanies numerous deposits of lead and silver ores, being valuable on account of its percentage in gold and silver, and its use as flux. At present the smelters derive the supply of iron ore to be used in their establishments as flux, from Tintic Mining District. In this district the iron ores occur in a belt two miles long and over 1,000 feet wide, bearing northeast and southwest. The Tintic iron ores occur as peroxides and sesquioxides of iron or hematite in strong veins, assaying 60 to 70 per cent. of iron, and $5 to $15 in gold and silver per ton. These
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ores are principally found in Tintic as bedded deposits in the Silurian lime- stone; they are not suited for any other purpose than flux on account of their containing other minerals. The principal deposits are in the moun- tain-side at and near Dragon Hollow, which leads from Silver City up and across the summit of the Oquirrh Mountain Range. The ore breasts here are from forty to fifty feet high. Over 100,000 tons of iron ore have been already, and from 150 to 200 tons of iron is daily, extracted from the Tintic iron mines. Iron ores for the purpose of fluxing silicious lead and silver ores are also found on the slopes of the Wasatch above Willard; Morgan County iron deposits, near the line of the Union Pacific; in the Wah-Wah Mountain Range, twenty-five miles southwest of Frisco ; in City Creek Canyon and in Iron County.
But to Southern Utah in general, and Iron County in particular, belongs whatever of credit may attach to the possession of the greatest and grandest iron mines in the world. Their existence has been known for all of twenty-five years, though the extent in comparison with the mines of other nations had not been established until later years. There are abso- lutely mountains of solid iron, of every variety known in the world. The most notable geologists and mineralogists have visited these colossal iron deposits and the verdict that they were the most boundless deposits known in the world has been unhesitatingly and unequivocally given. Among others who have examined these deposits is Prof. J. S. Newberry, principal of the Columbia School of Mines, New York, and as his opinion on the subject will carry greater weight than that perhaps of any other person, it is given below:
"These ore beds have been long known and were to some extent util- ized by the Mormons in their first advent, thirty years ago, but no satisfac- tory description of them has ever been published. As they constitute, perhaps, the most remarkable deposit of iron ore yet discovered on this continent, I have thought that some facts in regard to them might not be an unimportant addition to what is known of the economic resources of our country. The iron region referred to lies nearly two hundred miles directly south from Salt Lake City, and is situated in what is really the southern prolongation of the Wasatch Mountains. The iron ores occur in the north- ern portion of a subordinate range, which attains its greatest height in Pine Valley Mountain, near Silver Reef. Thirty miles north of this point the ridge breaks down into a series of hills from one thousand to two thousand feet in height, which consist chiefly of gray, fine-grained granite, with dykes and masses of trachyte and here and there outcrops of highly meta- morphosed limestone. The ore beds form a series of protruding crests and masses set over an area about fifteen miles long in a northeast and south- west direction, and having a width of three to five miles. Within this belt the iron outcrops are very numerous and striking; perhaps one hundred distinct claims have already been located upon them, each one of which would make the fortune of a mining company if situated anywhere in the Mississippi Valley or the Eastern States. The most impressive outcrops are in the vicinity of Iron Springs, Oak Springs and Iron City, of which localities the first and last mentioned are about twelve miles apart. Near Iron Springs the Big Blowout, as it is called, is a projecting mass of mag- netic ore, which shows a length of perhaps a thousand feet by a width of five hundred, and rises in castellated crags one hundred feet or more above its base.
"At Iron Springs a still more striking exhibition is made by the Blair mine, which is a ragged crest of magnetite, black as jet, formed by the upturned edge of the thickest of a series of sheets of ore, which rises like a ledge of bedded rock two or three hundred feet above the adjacent low lands. This outcrop is visible as a conspicuous black hill at a distance of
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several miles. The connections between the ore bodies of this great iron belt are obscured by the debris from the easily decomposed trachyte and granite. It is evident, however, that for some miles the iron ore deposits are continuous or separated by very short intervals, as the outcrops occur within a stone's throw of each other, and the surface is everywhere strewed with blocks of rich magnetic ore, enough in themselves to supply all the furnaces of the country for years. It would seem that the iron forms a number of distinct and closely approximated belts, which are the outcrops of beds that stand nearly vertical, and go down into the earth like huge walls.
"There is considerable diversity in the character of the ore, though it is about equally divided in quantity between hematite and magnetite. Some of the beds of both are exceedingly dense and compact, while others, though rich in iron, are soft and can be mined with the pick. Most of the ore is apparently very pure, containing a small amount of earthy matter and no foreign minerals. Some of the ledges, however, contain a large quantity of silica, the magnetite being mottled with white quartz ; and one of the largest outcrops. though showing many millions of tons of ore apparently quite pure, is thickly set along certain zones, evidently strata of decomposi- tion, with crystals of apatite from a quarter to half an inch in diameter and two or three inches in length. At this location many of the fragments are highly magnetic, and loadstone as strong as any known can be obtained there in great abundance. A few rods from this great outcrop is another of equal dimensions, in which the magnetite is apparently quite free from all impurities, showing neither quartz nor apatite. Near by is another expo- sure, perhaps a continuation of the last, of which the mass is half magnetite and the other half fine-grained and dense hematite. Across a narrow val- ley from this group the hillside is covered with fallen fragments of a rich but soft and dark hematite, and at no great distance the soil is covered blood- red by the decomposition of a hematite so soft as to make no other show above the surface. Near this latter location I noticed a line of outcrop of a very jaspery hematite, in some places only a ferruginous jasper, closely resembling some of the more silicious ores of the Marquette district.
"As to the age of this remarkable series of iron ore deposits, I cannot speak with absolute certainty, though they are apparently Lower Silurian.
"The granite of the hills which contain the iron is finer grained and less compact than that which forms the great granite axis of the Wasatch, and I suspect is the metamorphic condition of the quartzite beds which rest upon the Wasatch granite. Some of the iron ore beds in this granite are dis- tinctly interstratified with it, and are certainly, like it. metamorphosed sedi- ments. This is plainly shown at the Blair mine, where the principal crest of the hill is a distinct sheet of stratified, regularly bedded magnetite, from thirty to forty feet in thickness, dipping toward the north at an angle of about eighty degrees. Parallel with this principal layer are other sheets of magnetite, separated by strata of granite, and varying from a quarter of an inch to ten feet in thickness, as perfectly parallel and regular as any series of sedimentary beds ever seen.
"On the whole the Blair mine is the most interesting and instructive outcrop of iron known to me, and furnishes the most striking proof of the sedimentary origin of these wonderful ore beds. None of the other outcrops is so distinctly stratified, but the Big Blowout at Iron City, which affords an equally conclusive argument against the eruptive theory ; for it appears to be a huge amorphous mass, like a hill of basalt, on examination it is found to be in large part composed of metamorphosed limonite.
"With the exception of the great iron deposits of Southern Utah, the Far West is but imperfectly supplied with this metal. I have found
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magnetite and specular ores in small quantities in several places in the mountains of Oregon and California, and in the Rocky Mountain belt, and similar ores have been met with by prospectors and explorers in some of the districts which I have not visited. We have no evidence, however, that any other great deposits of iron exist in or beyond the Rocky Moun- tains."
COAL.
The coal fields of Utah are also limitless, and give the assurance that one hundred years of solid work would merely be a development of them- so varied and extensive are they. Let prediction have what value it may, cer- tain it is that in comparison with the extent of coal fields embraced by Utah, the work so far done is barely a scratch in the earth. It is with Utah's coal fields, however, as with many other resources: internal indifference and for- eign opposition backed by large railroad interests have largely retarded their development by the importation of foreign coal. These obstacles are now mainly overcome. In Summit County the coal mines have been most largely developed. None of the beds shows signs of pinching; many as yet are hardly opened, while untouched fields yet lie idle awaiting the period when the industries of this country will demand the extrac- tion of their hidden treasures. In Pleasant Valley, on the line of the Den- ver and Rio Grande Railway, vast fields are now being opened, and are made to supply a large portion of the local demand. These fields alone would prove of sufficient extent to predict for Utah a great industrial future in a manufacturing sense were they the only dependence for fuel. But in Iron County, the scene of the greatest iron mines in the world, and within less than twenty miles, are unlimited coal beds, which, though barely opened, are still seen to be of sufficient extent to warrant the location of stu- pendous iron furnaces, and the opening of the boundless iron claims found within the limits of Iron County. Examinations made by experienced pros- pectors and coal miners in Castle Valley, Emery County, prove beyond the shadow of a doubt, the existence of almost every variety of coal, unless, perhaps, anthracite, and this too in endless quantities. In the sections cited the existence of certain coal fields has been permanently established, as also in Sanpete County; but indications lead to the belief that these are by no means the only sections in which it is to be found. Traces have been found for years in almost every part of the Territory, while recent discoveries come near demonstrating to a certainty that Piute County, lying south and west of Emery, in which the great Castle Valley coal fields exist, is also the loca- tion of a superior quality of bituminous coal.
The coal of Utah has a thickness of more than 200 feet and lies along the eastern slope of the great Wasatch Mountain Range, forming an almost inexhaustible belt from the boundaries of Wyoming, through the Uintah Reservation, Pleasant Valley, on Huntington Creek, Castle Valley, down to Kanab and Pahreah. There is excellent coal on Weber River and its tribu- taries, for ten to fifteen miles above Echo. These Weber River coal mines have been found, opened and developed during the last fifteen years to a depth of 1,000 feet, disclosing immense bodies of coal to work upon for fifty generations to come. This coal is excellent for fuel in general, and engines in particular. The Weber River coal beds are from one to ten feet in thickness. A short railroad connects the mines with the main line and with Park City. Experiments have demonstrated the fact that this coal is of a non-coking character, and hence of little use in connection with the smelting of Utah ores. To the north and northeast, in Wyoming, are large deposits of a similar lignitic character. Eighty to ninety miles southeast of Salt Lake City, in Sanpete valley, a number of seams from six inches to six and a half feet in thickness of excellent bitumious coal
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have been found, while a little further to the east and southeast, among the mountains, others as wide as ten or eleven feet are worked. The coal is of a dark brown color near the surface and deeper down of a dull black color; by distillation it makes an excellent coke, as has been demonstrated by using the same in the Utah smelting works. All that the mines require is a better and more practicable plant for washing and coking. The Sanpete Valley Railway Company own eight miles along the strike of a four-foot vein or seam of coal, comprising 10,350 acres of coal land. The analysis of the Sanpete coal yields as follows for coke: Moisture, 1.8; Bitumen, 44.2; Coke, 50.7; Ash, 10.3 per cent.
It is estimated that the coal resources of Utah comprise an area of 20,000 square miles. With this fact in view we need have no apprehen- sion for the future, and the time is fast approaching when Utah will be, as a coal producer, the rival of Pennsylvania.
Up to 1880, the surveys of coal lands were divided in the counties as follows:
County.
Locality.
Acres.
Kane,
North of Kanab,
35,696
Kane,
On the Paria, .
13,688
Sanpete,
Pleasant Valley,
34,332
Sevier,
, Lower Castle Valley,
11,013
Iron,
Iron City to Parowan,
6,240
Wasatch,
Green River,
2,840
Summit,
About Coalville,
19,931
Tooele,
South of Ophir City,
1, 160
Box Elder,
West of Mendon .
800
Rich,
South of Randolph,
160
Morgan,
120
Total,
125,980
At that time as now, in over half the counties in the Territory, coal had been found. The returns of the local Land Office will show that probably 150,000 acres of coal lands have been surveyed.
COPPER.
In the extreme northwestern section of the country, within easy dis- tance of the railroad, a copper district has been opened. The veins lying in micacious shale, associated with porphyry, and varying from five to twenty feet in width, appear to carry almost all of the ores of copper, but mainly the oxide and glance, which yield sometimes as high as 50 per cent. of the pure metal. The mines are considerably developed and the prospects exceedingly good. There also appears copper in Copper Gulch, San Fran- cisco District, Tintic, Cottonwood, Snake District, Red Butte Canyon, Bingham Canyon, Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake, all over Beaver County, and in fact a great part of Southern Utah, and in the granite range between Salt Lake City and Ogden. In view of the proximity to the rail- roads and the fine country in which they are situated, these districts bid fair to become important in the near future.
Utah is remarkable no less for the variety and extent of minerals found within her borders than for their location, which renders them easy of access, and enhances their economic value materially. In both these regards she is fortunate as the most favored country on the globe.
SULPHUR.
Sulphur beds exist both in the north and south of Utah, the larg- est bed being found in the southern part of the Territory, or in Millard
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County. It comprises an area of about six miles long by one mile wide at the point of greatest width, and the average depth or thickness, as shown by actual tests in the sinking of shafts, is not less than twenty feet. That which, however, is most remarkable in connection with this sulphur bed is its unequaled fineness. In purity some of it goes 98, the average, however, being about 50, while sulphur from the far-famed Sicilian beds is but 20 in fineness. A very important bed is situated about fourteen miles south of the Horn Silver Mine, at Frisco, in Beaver County, in the west foothills of Star District, and was recently examined by Prof. J. E. Clayton. The sul- phur exists in fissures in a large hill of silicious sinter and flint, and is of extraordinary purity and of abundant quantity. Up to date the resources in this direction are untouched even for local consumption.
GYPSUM AND MICA.
Gypsum is found in great quantities both in Washington and Juab Counties. In some portions of the former county the hills are almost as thickly seamed with layers of gypsum as the blood veins seam the body in animal life. It also is found in large quantities in Sanpete County, but is especially plentiful in accessible form in Juab County, there being a seam to the east of Nephi, County seat of Juab, over 100 feet wide and some 1, 200 feet long. It exists both in the crystallized and in the massive form. The supply is limitless.
The existence of large quantities of mica has long been known. Until recently it had not been discovered in flakes large enough to give it com- mercial value. Later examinations show that it can be found in layers ranging from twelve to eighteen inches each way, the result being that it has already taken a place among the numerous minerals, found in Utah, available and of ready commercial value. It is found in greatest abundance in South- ern Utah, but is also to be seen in no trifling quantities in Davis and Salt Lake Counties.
ANTIMONY. .
This metal has already been shipped from Utah east at a profit. Veins of sulphuret of antimony three to six feet thick exist near Brigham City, Box Elder County; but it has been found purest and in largest quantities in Piute and Garfield Counties. The percentage of antimony in the Brigham City ore ranges from 20 to 30; in the other localities named, the percent- age is considerably greater. There seems no question that this will yet prove a mineral of infinite wealth to Utah.
SHALE, MINERAL WAX, OIL WELLS, ALUM SHALE.
In the Sanpete, Pleasant and Castle Valleys, in the sandstones and conglomerates, with the coal and near to the same, are beds of shale containing jet, ozocerite and albertite, and almost enough oily matter to burn alone, while in the vicinity are springs bringing to the surface considerable quantities of petroleum. Further to the north similar shales appear.
To aid the miner and prospector descriptions of jet, ozocerite and albertite is here given, the latter of which is found in great quantities in Southeastern Utah, 200 miles distant from Salt Lake City. Jet, or Gagates, is a very valuable mineral. It is in part a true lignite; it is light, looks much like smooth, black, glistening wood, is combustible and emits a disagreeable odor when rubbed, and burns with a smell of sulphur. It has been found in Hungary, Syria, in the rocks of Mount Lebanon, near Beyroo, in beds of coal in Asia Minor, on the Irrawaddy River in Burmah, in Utah and in New Mexico.
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Ozocerite (native paraffine in part) is like wax, spermaceti, butter-like, consistency of soft tallow. Color, greenish, wax yellow, yellowish brown to brown and brownish black, often having a greenish opalescence ; translu- cent, greasy to the touch; fusing point 56° to 63º, Celsius; colorless to white when pure. Ozocerite is partly to wholly soluble in ether, and gives a yellow or yellowish brown solution; it is also soluble in oil of turpentine and naptha, and a little soluble in alcohol. Ozocerite occurs in and is associated with beds of coal in Utah, Burmah, Slanik in Moldavia, Baryslaw in Galicia, beneath a bed of bituminous clay shale; in masses of 80 to 100 pounds at the foot of the Carpathian Mountain Range; Gaming in Australia; in Tran- sylvania, in Moldavia; in the Carpathian sandstone; at Uphall in Linlithgow- shire, Scotland. It is used for the manufacture of paraffine.
Albertite (Milan asphaltum) occurs as filling irregular fissures in rocks of the lower Cretaceous and Tertiary ages in Utah. It has H. 1-2; G .= 1,007; luster brilliant and pitch-like; color brownish, black to jet black. Softens a little in boiling water; shows incipient fusion in the flame of a candle; and partly soluble in alcohol and ether, more in oil of turpen- tine (about 30 per cent.). It is used in the manufacture of asphaltum and gas.
The shale beds, underlying which, in strata not exceeding twelve inches in thickness, occurs what is called mineral wax, appear to extend over an area of a thousand square miles, and to be from sixty to one hundred feet thick, the part rich in gas and paraffine oils twenty to forty feet thick, with occasional thin seams of coal. They are cut across and exposed by Spanish Fork Canyon, and are similar in general characteristics to the wax-bearing beds of Galicia, in Austria. Whether these shales are rich enough to justify distillation has not been tested on a working scale, but it is believed they are. Thorough prospecting with oil-well tools might develop a new petro- leum district. The Promontory Range, which projects thirty miles into Great Salt Lake from the north, bears vast beds of alum shales, and a simi- lar formation is met with in Sanpete County on the Sevier ; while alum, in combination with other minerals, is found almost everywhere. It has not been put to any use as yet .* Oil wells, or ozocerite, have also been found in Emery County. At one point, near a flowing stream, the oil forces its way out of the earth; and even the most trifling opening has served to increase the stream. Years ago oil was discovered in the Bear Lake region, but the feeble attempts to develop resulted very unsatisfactorily. There seems, nevertheless, little reason to doubt that, among Utah's other resources of a capacity upon which industries can be established, will be found petroleum. Vast beds of alum, almost pure, are found in abundance.
SALT, SODA, MARBLE, CLAYS, ETC.
If Utah were more abundantly supplied in any one regard than in another, it would certainly be in the matter of salt. Were Great Salt Lake, which itself has a boundless and inexhaustible capacity, absolutely unknown, the supply would still be limitless. The lake alone would supply salt for the whole United States for a nameless period; added to this, however, are flow- ing salt wells, and literal mountains of rock-salt. The wells are found in Rich and Juab Counties, rock salt in Sanpete, Sevier, Juab and other coun- ties, besides in the north. As fine a quality of salt as the best Liverpool has been made from the salt wells in Bear Lake Valley. The brine of Salt Lake is almost 17 per cent. solid matter, of which, portions run between 85 and 95 per cent. pure salt. Other salt lakes, though of trifling extent, are found in various parts of the Territory, and for all ordinary purposes, excepting perhaps table use, salt is taken from the nearest point and used.
* Resources of Utah.
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Saleratus beds are found in all directions, so extensive at times and so thick as to prove a detriment to the husbandman. On the desert west of Salt Lake, and in Southern Utah in the western section of the Territory, it is found in quantities calculated to justify the establishment of industries of a capacity equal to world-wide demands. It exudes from the ground in vari- ous parts of the Territory ; and more than once in the days of the Pioneers was resorted to in its crude form for the making of bread, and was found to be admirable.
All parts of the Territory seem favored alike with an inexhaustible abundance of building rock, running from a soft oolite to different degrees of hardness, and from limestone and sandstone to marble and even emery. There are many varieties of oolite in Sanpete County. The Manti Temple is built on an oolite rock, from the same material quarried within half a mile. Near Ephraim, the Parry quarry is noted for its fine oolite, while it is found in all parts of the valley. The same stone is found at Mendon and else- where. Southern Utah is mainly a sandstone formation. Perhaps in the whole of the west there is not to be found a more beautiful sandstone quarry than is located within a mile and a half of St. George, Washington County. A solid sandstone bed, has already been traced for fully half a mile and not a seam is to be found in it. The depth is unknown, the color a beautiful bright red, and placed near any large city possessed of facilities for exporta- tion, would be of incalculable value. Sandstone, however, is confined to no especial locality; and within four miles of Salt Lake, it exists in exhaustless quantities. A beautiful white marble is found in Juab County; while in Utah, Salt Lake, Tooele and Cache Counties white and other varieties susceptible of a most perfect polish, are to be found. In Cache County especially are found, within easy access, superior qualities of marble, in colors-black, white, banded, mottled, gray and cream colored. Antelope Island, in the center of Great Salt Lake, contains an immense slate quarry; . the colors are green and purple, and tests have demonstrated that no super- ior quality is found in ordinary commerce, while much of it is vastly inferior. The granite formations are of great extent and confined to no particular locality, though the quarries in Little Cottonwood Canyon, Salt Lake County, are most noted and developed to the greatest extent. It is from this place the granite is taken with which the Salt Lake Temple is being built.
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