32 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



value of $10,526. In 1900 they amounted to 775 short tons valued 

 at $14,830. The principal ports of entry are New York, Boston 

 and Chicago, and the shipments are made from both Spanish and 

 British ports. 



GRAPHITE 



No noteworthy developments were recorded for the graphite 

 industry during 191 1. The production amounted to 2,510,000 

 pounds, about the usual quantity, and represented a value of 

 $137,750. The total for the preceding year was 2,619,000 pounds, 

 with a value of $160,700. Prices appeared to be somewhat lower; 

 the reported average was about 5.5 cents a pound, as compared 

 with 6.1 cents in 1910. 



The American mine at Graphite, owned by the Joseph Dixon 

 Crucible Co., continued as the leading producer. This mine has 

 long been the largest and most successful of the kind, not only in 

 the State but in the country as well, and may be considered the 

 pioneer enterprise in all that relates to the technology of treating the 

 disseminated flake graphite which constitutes the principal source 

 of domestic production. The methods of extracting and refining 

 the graphite as developed by its management have seldom been 

 appHed elsewhere with similar results, owing in some measure 

 undoubtedly to the unusually favorable natural conditions found 

 at Graphite. The ore is a quartzite carrying flakes of graphite 

 distributed along the cleavage planes. The flakes are relatively 

 of large size, showing the appearance of having been squeezed out 

 by regional compression, and measure up to one quarter inch in 

 diameter. The average content in graphite may be placed at about 

 6 or 7 per cent. What is most important to the success of the 

 milling operations is the practical absence of micaceous minerals 

 which are more or less common in the graphitic schists and quartz- 

 ites of the Adirondacks. When present in any amount a high- 

 grade graphite product can not be expected. 



The deposits of the American mine have a northeast-southwest 

 strike and their extension to the southwest is found on the adjoining 

 lands owned by W. H. Faxon of Chestertown, N. Y. This property 

 has been explored recently with considerable thoroughness by test 

 pits and diamond drilling, but still awaits active development. The 

 exploration has demonstrated the continuity of the graphite beds 

 over a distance of fully 4000 feet along their course to the south- 

 west and with some interruptions for several hundred feet on the 

 dip which follows a low angle to the southeast. The same series of 

 gneisses, limestones and graphitic quartzites is found here as in the 



