Along the road entering this ore area, leading north from Freemont and crossing Shade mountain to Meiser, the Bloomsburg red shale is seen making a low ridge just below the mill in Perry township. A short distance further north, opposite Good’s grist-mill, the Ore sandstone makes an independent ridge three-quarters of a mile from the main mountain, showing a small outcrop on a 30° south dip. No appearance of either the Sand Vein or the Danville fossil ore bed were noticed, and both the Ore sandstone and Bloomsburg red shale make much higher and more prominent ridges east of Mahantango creek than they do in the gap and to the west, where they become more or less merged into the flank of Shade mountain.
Henry Liester’s mine openings are located a little further north on the east side of the creek, and about 40′ above water level, where the dip has already fallen to only 5° S.
The Bird's Eye fossil ore bed has been worked here between walls of slate, and though only found from 7″–10′ thick, its good quality and low dip caused a large development of its outcrop for some distance up and down the stream. All the openings are abandoned now, the last shipments having been made to Union furnace, where it was sold at high prices. The drifts were not extended more than 25 yards into the hill; but the low dips gave a great length of breast.
John Mengle has opened the same bed in several places further north, a small ravine dividing the two properties. The bed has the same character here and was mined out in large blocks of medium soft fossil ore, full of parallel seams, which assisted considerably in mining it and give it an exceedingly attractive appearance on the ore pile.
The ore found here was of excellent quality, the bed still rising gently northwards towards the crossroads at Weller’s old Black Horse Hotel. The rise of the anticlinal here has carried the ore bed to daylight; but it almost immediately folds over the arch, and occurs upon all the head waters of the streams flowing northward into Middle creek.
P. Weller’s farm was largely opened, the ore bed lying nearly flat there, and furnishing a great amount of outcrop
