| One hundred years ago when the Maryland Geological Survey was established, there had been a long-standing tradition, at least since the 1600's, that learned people read the original works of the natural philosophers, the equivalent of the scientific journals of today. These men and a few women were not ashamed or afraid to include first person or third person reports in their writings; it was the norm. It livened the writing and made it more accessible and enjoyable for the average intelligent reader.
Titles such as the one that I have deliberately chosen for my paper were common. What I hope to show in this paper is some of the fun and value of this earlier personal writing, as well as convey some information that I believe requires preservation. My topic is the sedimentary iron ores of Maryland. I have no intention of presenting an exhaustive study here. Readers who are interested in such works are referred to some of the references at the end of this paper. What I will do is provide some interesting quotations and stories from around the time of the origin of the Maryland Geological Survey plus some of earlier and later times, and try to give a flavor of Maryland's historic iron ore industry.
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