ironstones

Updated: May 24, 2025

In one spot only was the solemn monotony of the plain broken. Near the centre a small solitary kopje rose. Alone it lay there, a heap of round ironstones piled one upon another, as over some giant's grave.

Olive Schreiner - The Story of an African Farm, a novel

In short, the formation consists of masses of sandstone, shale, limestone and coal, these also enclosing clays and ironstones, and, in the limestone, marbles and veins of the ores of lead, zinc, and antimony, and occasionally silver. Sigillarian trunks in current-bedded sandstone.

Edward A. Martin - The Story of a Piece of Coal: What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes

I strode on, half maddened. Beside the great block of granite which sheltered the farm there rose one of those rocky little hillocks of loose boulders which are locally known in South Africa by the Dutch name of kopjes. I looked out upon it drearily. Its round brown ironstones lay piled irregularly together, almost as if placed there in some earlier age by the mighty hands of prehistoric giants.

Grant Allen - Hilda Wade, a Woman with Tenacity of Purpose

Mushet himself. For several years after its discovery by him, its use was confined to the Calder Iron Works, where it was employed in mixture with other ironstones of the argillaceous class. It was afterwards partially used at the Clyde Iron Works, but nowhere else, a strong feeling of prejudice being entertained against it on the part of the iron trade generally.

Samuel Smiles - Industrial Biography, Iron Workers and Tool Makers