Greetings, The fourth installment (paragraph) of the Sesqui-Centennial Address of Sussex County given by Justice Francis J. Swayze on 2 Sep 1903 and printed by the Sussex Independent newspaper.... " THE MINERAL RESOURCES There are indications in some of the early records that the mineral resources of the county had already began to attract attention, and in 1755 Governor BELCHER, in an official report to the Lords of Trade, says that the counties of Morris and Sussex are cheifly mountainous, rocky land which yield plenty of iron ore and timber and that there are now three furnaces within them which yield a considerable quantity of pig iron and a great number of forges for melting bar iron into pigs , and a considerable number of forges or Bloonieries which make bar iron out of the out of the ore; these counties, he says, "are so well timbered that they can supply coal enough for a long time for those and many other iron works." Governor Belcher was evidently more impressed by the possibility of making charcoal and iron than he was by ouw fertile valleys, the development of which had fairly began." Happy Hunting, Cathy DiPietro, listowner NJSussex-L