Jackson.] 72 



Dr. "Wyman remarked that In the mounds of the Atlantic coast, the 

 vessels are invariably broken, though in those of the central States, 

 they are found whole ; to which Mr. Alexander Agassiz added his testi- 

 mony, stating that in those he had seen in the neighborhood of San 

 Mateo, California, he was able to find but a single mortar, the bottom 

 of which was not broken out. 



Dr. C. T. Jackson presented to the Society some sjDecimens 

 of iron ores from the northern end of Staten Island, where a 

 large deposit of the ore exists, and has been wrought to some 

 extent, upwards of seven thousand tons of it having been 

 made into good cast iron. 



This ore was found on the old manor of Thomas Durgan, the first 

 British Governor of the Colony of New York, now belonging to Cor- 

 nehus Du Bois, Esq. 



The ore is a singular concretion of rounded grains of magnetic chrom- 

 iferous iron ore, the rounded grains giving the mass the appearance 

 of a pisolite or oolite, being made up of concentric layers with radii 

 diverging from their centres, and the whole being imbedded in a paste 

 of compact brown peroxide of iron, or haematite. 



On chemical analysis the ore was found to yield 



44.1. 



100.5 100.5 = gain oxygen. 



This ore does not make strong bar iron, but very good cast iron, ac- 

 cording to reports of iron masters who have worked it. 



He also presented specimens of argentiferous Galena and 

 Copper Pyrites, with the dressed Copper and Lead ore pre- 

 pared from them, from Middletown, Ct., and also a specimen 

 of prepared peat from Lexington, Mass. 



He remarked that some economical method of converting the exten- 

 sive bogs of peat which abound in our northern States into good fuel, 

 both for the range and stove, as well as for the reduction of iron ores, 

 had long been desired. In the ordinary desiccation of cut peat the 

 fibres of the sphagnum prevent its contraction into solid masses, and it 



