THE GEOLOGY OF THE SYRACUSE QUADRANGLE 31 



to cover the cracks and the nails. Plastered in this way, rooms are 

 habitable as they are finished and the builder does not need to wait 

 months or weeks for the dampness to get out of the wall. Various 

 substances are mixed with the gypsum when used for plaster, some 

 simply as coloring matter and some for other purposes. These 

 mixtures are patented and sold in the market under the patented 

 name. 



The largest gypsum quarries are in the area south of Lyndon 

 in an outlier separated from the Alleghany plateau by an east-west 

 glacial channel extending through White lake. Some of these 

 quarries have been in operation for a century and the supply is 

 not yet exhausted. There are numerous abandoned quarries along 

 the north edge of the plateau escarpment between White lake and 

 Jamesville ; in fact, it is almost one continuous quarry between 

 these two points. The gypsum has been quarried on the outcrop 

 back into the plateau until the thickness of the overlying rocks 

 became so great that the expense of the removal of the overburden 

 prevented further quarrying with profit. In a few places the at- 

 tempt has been made to mine the gypsum underground without 

 removing the overlying rock, but so far this has not proved very 

 successful. Some gypsum has been quarried along the Delaware, 

 Lackawanna and Western Railroad east of Butternut creek. The 

 gypsum extends both east and west from the Syracuse area but in 

 this locality most of the product has been derived from the area 

 mentioned between Butternut and Limestone creeks in the south- 

 eastern part of the quadrangle. The bed is probably continuous to 

 and beyond the quarries at Union Springs. 



SALT 



The Camillus shales contain the great beds of rock salt of central 

 and western New York. The names Salina and Onondaga salt 

 group in the older reports indicate the prominence of the salt in 

 this locality; both of these terms, however, include the underlying 

 Vernon shales as well as the Camillus. They were long known 

 locally as the lower Salina red shales and the upper Salina gray 

 shales. While some salt is reported to have been found in the red 

 shales, it is the gray or drab colored Camillus shales that contain 

 the commercial salt beds. The abundance of salt in this group ex- 

 plains the absence of fossils as the concentrated salt water and the 

 arid conditions necessary to produce the same are inimical to both 

 animal and vegetable life. 



The larger salt beds occur near the base of the Camillus group 

 in this locality, but there is seldom any salt in the solid form in 



