32 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



The gypsum resources of the State have been described at length 

 in a special report, issued as bulletin 143 of the New York State 

 Museum. The information in the report is brought down to the 

 year 1909; the interval that has since elapsed has been without any 

 notable changes in the industry. 



The growing demand for gypsu.n plasters in the building trade 

 is the basis of the recent expansion of the industry. It was not 

 until 1892 that the local gypsum found use in making calcined plaster 

 and several years passed before the product assumed any impor- 

 tance. The entrance of the U. S. Gypsum Co. in the Oakland dis- 

 trict about 1903 gave a strong impetus to the industry and may be 

 regarded perhaps as marking the real beginning of the successful 

 manufacture of calcined wall plaster which the resources of the 

 company and its experience gained in other fields enabled it to 

 establish on a permanent footing. With the rapid growth of the 

 market for these materials other enterprises have naturally followed. 

 The present capacity of the mines and mills is probably equal, how- 

 ever, to the demands that are likely to be made upon them for some 

 time to come, and the opportunity for new developments seems 

 somewhat limited so far as the immediate future is concerned. 



The natural resources of the State are capable of supporting the 

 industrial requirements for an indefinite period. The total pro- 

 duction of gypsum from the start of mining about the year 1808 to 

 the present has amounted probably to a little more than 5,000,000 

 tons. With the increasing rate of production now in progress an 

 equal quantity will be taken out before the end of the present 

 decade. But the niining operations of the past, or those likely to be 

 undertaken in the future, appear insignificant as compared with the 

 known extent of the deposits. The actual output in the past repre- 

 sents the equivalent of less than 500 acres of a 4 foot seam which 

 is about the minimum thickness of a workable bed. The gypsum 

 is found in a belt that extends from Madison county to Lake Erie, 

 occurring as a regularly stratified member of the Salina formation 

 of which the chief constituent is shale. The deposits of course have 

 the elongated lenticular form characteristic of sedimentary strata 

 and doubtless many gaps exist in the belt when they can not be 

 exploited economically on account of insufficient size or unfavorable 

 conditions as to surroundings. There is also considerable variation 

 in the quality of gypsum; some seams, specially in the eastern sec- 



