52 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



arsenic and other deleterious impurities. It is shipped to acid 

 makers in New York and adjoining states. 



The National Pyrites Co., who formerly operated the mines 

 at High Falls or Pyrites, has retired from business. The prop- 

 erty has been taken over by the Oliver Iron Mining Co., a branch 

 of the United States Steel Corporation. It is now being pros- 

 pected in a thorough manner by the diamond drill. The ore 

 occurs in lenses that strike northeast and dip northwest at an 

 angle of 15° or so, with a pitch toward the north. The line of 

 outcrop extends across the Grasse river under which there are 

 workings reached from openings made on an island in the river. 

 A striking feature of the deposits is the occurrence of pyrrhotite 

 in segregated masses between the pyrite shoots. The mineral 

 is not intermixed to any extent with the pyrite. 



The Cole mine near Gouverneur consists of a large lens that 

 outcrops at the surface and is worked as an open cut. It affords 

 an ore above the average in richness, a part of the product being 

 suitable for shipment in the crude state. The American Pyrites 

 Co. took over the property in 1906, as successor of the Adiron- 

 dack Pyrite Co. The suspension of operations, it is understood, 

 has not been due to any failure of ore supply or technical diffi- 

 culty, but to the heavy burden of royalties imposed. 



SALT 



The continued growth of output is the principal feature of 

 the salt industry in the State recorded during the past year. The 

 gain has been somewdiat larger than the average and indicates 

 apparently that the New^ York product is fully holding its own 

 in the trade. Owing to its command of the large eastern 

 markets, the local industry has been able to maintain the im- 

 portant position which it secured more than a century ago, not- 

 withstanding the recent rapid development of other sources of 

 supply. 



All of the different grades of salt known to the trade are pro- 

 duced in the State. The rock salt mines situated in Livingston 

 county supply more than one half of that commodity used in 

 the country. The manufacture of salt by the solar process is 

 carried on extensively on the Onondaga Reservation where it 

 was first started in 1789. The brines used for that purpose are 

 natural, while in the other localities the manufacture of brine 

 salt is based on solutions obtained by driving wells into beds 

 •of rock salt and the introduction of water from the surface 



