210 Account of Schooley’s Mountain 
coarse marine salt, The feldspar is mostly whitish, some- 
times reddish, and presents less of the polished fracture 
than the American feldspars usually do. It has the ap- 
pearance of a more imperfect formation, or of having un- 
dergone a partial decomposition. These two ingredients 
make up the bulk of the rocks. Many masses may be ex- 
amined without observing a vestige of mica. Abundant 
as mica is almost every where in these parts, with the mix- 
tures of feldspar and quartz, in our primitive rocks, it ts 
remarkably deficient here. Now and thena little schistus, 
or horneblende, is found embodied and compacted with 
the quartz and feldspar. Grains of yellow pyrites also 
sometimes occur. Rust, ochre, and other indications of 
iren, are dispersed extensively both through the rocks and 
the soil. Iron vre is indeed so plentiful, that furnaces are 
in operation both in the eastern and western districts of 
the chain. Much of it is magnetical, and its action is so 
powerful upon the needle, that surveyors of land often 
find it very difficult to employ the compass. It would be 
possible to collect great quantities of the magnet, and of 
other ores of iron. in the middle region. Towards the foot 
of the hills, limestone is found skirting the valleys along, 
and is calcined in quantity sufficient for all ceconomical uses. 
Among the natural productions thereabout, are masses 
of excellent flint stones, They lie along the valleys and 
side hills, where they have been washed bare ; and are suf- 
ficient in quantity and quality for domestic supply of our 
musketry. They are more pure and of a better fracture 
than those contained in the lime-stone near Niagara. And. 
when this important article of public detence shall be 
thought worthy of being improved by the citizens, there 
seems to be in New-Jersey an inexhaustible supply for our 
fire-arms, 
A turnpike road has been completed from the city of 
Jersey, at Powleshook, to the sammit of Schooley’s moun- 
tain. The travelling is excellent the whole distance. This 
-1s just fifty miles from New-York city. Estimating the 
width of the Hudson to be two miles, the distance to 
Newark is nine, to Springfield seven, to Chatham five, to 
Morristown seven, to Mendham six, to Blackriver six, to 
Dutch-valley five, and to the Mineral Spring on the eastern 
or further side of the mountain, three miles. Through - 
such a succession of thriving villages, and amidst a countr 
pleasingly checkered with forests and farms, the rise of the 
first five hundred feet is surmounted in about forty-seven 
miles, as the traveller passes over a surface of easy eleva- 
tions 
