REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR I916 265 



material does not carry much above 75 per cent in gy^psum. It is 

 for this reason that the bulk of the output now comes from the 

 western section, despite the advantages that the eastern deposits 

 have in regard to size and accessibility. 



All the mines are situated on the outcrop of the deposits and are 

 opened usually by adits or tunnels on the level of the beds, although 

 in one or two mines access to the w^orkings is through shallow 

 shafts. There are no mines now operated under more than 100 

 feet of cover. With the exhaustion of the resources in the outcrop 

 mines the workings will have to be extended in depth, to the south 

 of the outcrop, where it would appear that deposits of similar 

 character to those now worked are to be found. 



Very little exploration has been carried on of late years in the 

 g}^psum belt. The period of greatest development was from 1900 

 to 1907, when the mines in the western section, that is Genesee and 

 Erie counties, were opened and rapidly gained the lead which they 

 have since maintained. In the last year the testing of deposits near 

 Victor, Ontario county, has been under way, but it is not known 

 just what results were obtained. 



IRON ORE 



The unprecedented conditions in the iron trade which obtained 

 during the year 1916, when production and consumption proceeded 

 at rates that are absolutely, without parallel in the history of the 

 industry, showed their influence upon the local mining developments 

 and the statistics of output as returned by the active companies. 

 The shipments of lump ore and concentrates by New York mines 

 amounted altogether to 1,464,917 long tons, valued at $5,571,429, 

 a new record and representing a gain of over 50 per cent in the total 

 for the year. 



The details of the record will be found in the accompanying table, 

 which gives also the figures for the past two decades. In comparing 

 the statistics of the table it should be noted that those for 1916 

 represent shipments, while in previous years the mine output has 

 been the basis of compilation. As a matter of fact, however, there 

 is rarely any wide variation between the quantity of ore mined in 

 any one 3^ear and the shipments for the same period, since little of 

 the product is held in stock at the mines but is sold on yearly 

 contracts. 



The shipments consisted of magnetite, hematite and limonite in 

 the order of their importance. A total of 1,402,859 long tons con- 

 sisted of magnetite in the form of lump ore and concentrates from 



