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belongs to the children of Mr. Gilbert, some of whom are minors. In several. other places, on the banks of this creek, I found copper ores. At the place formerly worked. there is said to be a large bed of copper, at the base of the hill. The clays from above had fallen in, and I could only see loose masses of copper. only the outcroppings, which lead. not been considered rich enough to take away. Here the bed of copper is not far below the surface, which is a large prairie, the whole country being nearly all prairie land.
Knox county is said to have some very rich copper beds. The postmaster at New Henries told me that he was one of a large party out last spring for the purpose of hunting game, and finding minerals, especially copper. He gave me very rich specimens of blue copper, (malachite), of which he said lie saw beds of considerable thickness between sand rocks on the side hills of that region.
THE COPPER OF ARCHER COUNTY.
In the report of the General Land Office for 1869, p. 49. is a, notice of the copper ores of this county containing some erroneous statements. It is said to be in the permian period, and that if this "formation were ever known to exist in Texas, it has been mistaken for the triassic system, which is overlying the former to the southeast." In a notice, which I gave of this copper in the Texas Almanac of 1868, it is stated that Archer county probably belongs to the permian. Many years ago Shumard reported that the permian was at the Guadalupe mountains, of Texas. It has never been mistaken for the triassic by any geologist of the Texas State survey, nor does the triassic overlie it at the southeast. I now think that Archer county belongs to the upper carboniferous. Certainly no permian fossils have been found there. It is also stated that the veins of copper are very numerous in Archer county, and have been traced over the summits and sides of the hills, so that hardly a tract of one hundred and sixty acres can be found. without ore on the surface. It is supposed that these veins are contemporaneous with injections, at different periods, of quartz, trap and porphyry.
I have seen no veins of copper in the copper bearing strata of Northern Texas. Capt. Gant, of Weatherford, who is a very good geologist, and who knows more about