94 Experiments on two varieties of Iron. 



Art. XI. — Experiments on two varieties of Iron, manufactured 



from the Magnetic Ores at the Adirondack iro?i works, Essex 



County, N. Y. ; by Walter R. Johnson, late Professor of 



Mechanics and Natural Philosophy in the Franklin Institute, 



Philadelphia. 



The portion of the State of New York, bounded eastv/ardly 

 by lakes George and Champlain, northwardly by the Canada line, 

 and northwestwardly by the river St. Lawrence, embracing the 

 counties of Warren, Essex, Hamilton, Clinton, Franklin, and St. 

 Lawrence, appears from various representations to be peculiarly 

 rich in the magnetic ores of iron. We may refer in particular to 

 Mr. Redfield's account of his exploring visits to the northern 

 sources of the Hudson,* and to Messrs. Hall and Emmons' Geo- 

 logical Reports relative to that part of the State of New York. 



Mr. Hall observes, that " about a mile north of the inlet of Lake 

 Sanford," (the site of the Adirondack works, at the settlement 

 called Mclntyre,) "in the bed and on both sides of the stream, 

 is a bed of ore, which cannot be much less than five hundred 

 feet wide, and in all probability, far exceeds that breadth. This 

 bed, with one or two minor ones on each side of the stream, has 

 been traced for three fourths of a mile in a northerly direction, 

 and probably continues much farther southerly, as the great num- 

 ber of boulders and angular fragments of ore lying on the surface 

 and imbedded in the soil, seem to indicate. Some of these boul- 

 ders of ore cannot weigh less than three tons.f 



This ore, it appears, occurs in beds and not in veins, since it 

 lies " parallel to the direction of the mountain range, and, when 

 in gneiss, parallel to its apparent stratification." 



Mr. Emmons considersj that the beds at this place " are parts of 

 a belt of an iron formation, which extends southwesterly through 

 the wilderness to the town of Chamont, in St. Lawrence County, 

 and that all along the line connecting those places, many beds re- 

 main to be discovered. No one of these beds of iron may be equal 

 to those of Missouri ; still, put together, there is a much greater 

 quantity of it, and more advantageously distributed." 



* Am. Journal of Science, Vol. xxxiii, p. 303, Jan. 1838. 

 t First Geological Report of New York, Feb. 1837, p. 131. 

 X Second Geological Report of New York, Feb. 1838, p. 223. 



