52 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



place, and two productive wells ar^ reported to have been brought 

 in of which the first produced from 5 to 6 barrels a day. The 

 second was dry when drilled, but began to flow after having been 

 '' shot." The oil is said to be of a dark, heavy quality. 



PYRITE 



Pyrite is obtained commercially in St Lawrence county. The 

 mines of that section have been worked intermittently for many 

 years but have come into prominence only of late, largely as the 

 result of the systematic operations carried on by the St Lawrence 

 Pyrite Co. The property of this company is situated at Stellaville 

 near Hermon, and comprises a number of mines that have been 

 more or less extensively developed, a large concentrating plant, and 

 other equipment including the branch railroad from Hermon to 

 De Kalb Junction which it built to secure an outlet for its product. 

 The shipments are in the form of concentrates which are sold to 

 sulfuric acid makers. 



In addition to the Stellaville mines, the Cole property near 

 Gouverneur has been a producer during the last two years, having 

 been reopened in 1910. It is worked under lease by the Hinckley 

 Fibre Co., which uses the output in crude form for the manufac- 

 ture of sulfite pulp at its plant at Hinckley, Oneida county. 



The employment of the crude low-grade ore for direct conver- 

 sion of the sulfur into sulfurous acid to be used in the sulfite pulp 

 process is a new development which if permanently successful, as 

 it appears likely to prove from present indications, may have im- 

 portant consequences for the Adirondack mining industry. The 

 output of sulfite fiber by the mills in that section is reported as 

 about 900 tons daily for which 135 tons of commercial sulfur are 

 imported at an average cost of $3300. To supply the equivalent 

 amount of sulfur from pyrite would require from 400 to 600 tons 

 of the usual grade of St Lawrence county ore, or say 150,000 tons a 

 year. According to information privately communicated to the 

 writer, there is an important economy in the use of the pyrite when- 

 ever it can be laid down at the mill at a fair price. In the case of 

 such low-grade ores, its uses, however, necessitate special apparatus 

 and methods which have been the subject of extended investigation ; 

 that success, to a certain degree at least, has attended the experi- 

 ments seems to be evidenced by the continued shipments from the 

 Cole mine. 



Pyrite is rather abundantly distributed in the Adirondack region, 

 and is represented in larger quantity in association with the Gren- 



