State Ore-Banks, Cave Spring, Floyd County, Georgia, USAi

Regional Level Types
State Ore-Banks	Mine
Cave Spring	Group of Villages
Floyd County	County
Georgia	State
USA	Country

These banks, so called, on account of their being on the property of the State Deaf and Dumb Asylum, are located in the chert hills, on lot 997, 3rd district, 1 1/4 miles southeast of Cave Spring. The workings, which consist of two large open-cuts, each several yards long, and in places, 40 feet deep, are situated only a few rods apart, on the slopes of two adjacent ridges, here separated from each other, by a narrow hollow. The banks were opened some 18 months ago; and they have been worked, by a small force of hands, almost continuously, ever since. The ore occurs, as gravel and bowlders, in the vari-colored clays; and it is more or less mixed with chert. Clay horses are frequently met with, in the banks; and they often seriously interfere with mining. Clay dikes, which are fissures, from 4 to 18 inches, wide, filled with very fine dark-red clay, are also of common occurrence. In one of these cuts, as many as four of these dikes. are to be seen. They are usually parallel, and from 5 to 15 feet apart; and they extend to a greater depth, than has yet been reached by mining.

The ore, from the State banks sometimes has a reddish color, as if it were partially altered to hematite. It usually runs high in metallic iron; but it often contains considerable manganese oxide. This mineral is frequently noticeable in the banks, where it occurs as small veins and irregular pockets, associated with the iron ore in the form of a black powder, and as minute imperfect rectangular prisms. There seems to be a large quantity of first-class ore still remaining in the State banks; but it is questionable, whether it can be economically worked, on account of the heavy over-burden and the clay horses.