32
OUR MINERAL RESERVES.
able to procure foreign barytes cheaper than they could buy domestic
barytes.
The following facts regarding the location both of mines in opera
tion and of undeveloped deposits are given by the United States Geo
logical Survey and will be of present interest.
In the United States the principal sources of supply are the Mis
souri and Appalachian districts. In 1913 the Missouri district fur
nished between 68 and 69 per cent of the total production of the
United States, and among the Appalachian States Georgia, North
Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Virginia, named in the
order of production, reported an output of crude barytes.
So far as known, no barytes has been produced from Alabama
mines since 1906. There are some deposits which probably could be
worked in Calhoun, Etowah, and St. Clair counties, in the northeast
ern part of the State, and in Bibb County, near the center.
Within a radius of about 15 miles centered about Carters vil le, Bar
tow county, Ga., considerable iron ore, ocher, and barite are mined
from residual clays derived from Cambrian and Ordovician rocks.
The deposits are on the east side of the Appalachian fold and form
a northward continuation of the Alabama field.
In Kentucky barite deposits are known in the central (Blue
Grass) and western parts of the State. Barite has been mined in
Boyle, Fayette, and Garrard counties south of Lexington, though
deposits are known in 13 counties centered about the capital.
The greater part of the barytes produced in the United States is
obtained from deposits in Washington, St. Francois, Franklin, and
Jefferson counties, of east-central Missouri, and from Cole, Morgan,
and Miller counties, in the center of the State. Practically all the
barytes, locally known as “tiff,” is mined from shallow shafts and
open cuts in the residual clay.
Two districts in eastern Tennessee contain important deposits of
barite. The French Broad district, on the North Carolina line,
south and a little east of Knoxville, includes parts of Cocke and
Sevier counties. Owing to lack of transportation the veins in this
region have not been extensively worked. In the Sweetwater dis
trict, including parts of Loudon, McMinn, and Monroe counties,
centering about Sweetwater, there has been extensive development
and a considerable production of barytes in the past.
In Virginia barytes occurs in three unlike areas—in the red sand
stone and shale series of the Triassic; in the old crystalline meta-
morphic rocks, particularly in the Piedmont crystalline limestone
area; and in the valley region of faulted and folded Cambrian and
Ordovician limestones. The deposits in the Triassic red sandstones
of Prince William County, in the northeastern part of the State, are
of little importance at present, though they have been intermittently