24 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



the work of the First Geological Survey, and it is an inexcusable 

 waste of effort to continue the search. Yet ventures of this sort 

 are being promoted almost constantly and in some instances that 

 have come to the writer's notice they have entailed a very con- 

 siderable financial loss. In the Catskills and southern tier of counties 

 the stratified formations most closely approximate in age the period 

 of deposition of the Appalachian coal, but they belong mostly to the 

 uppermost Devonian horizons and thus antedate the first coal 

 measures which occur in the Carboniferous. There are small isolated 

 areas of Carboniferous strata in Cattaraugus and Allegany counties, 

 mainly represented by conglomerates, which indicate a possible 

 occurrence of the overlying coal measures in past geological ages, 

 since swept off by erosion. 



The precious metals also are not present in New York in workable 

 quantity. The efforts to promote enterprises for exploiting deposits 

 of these metals should be deprecated as sure to entail loss upon the 

 financial participants and as working an injury upon legitimate 

 enterprises. The writer is well aware of the fact that it is not 

 possible to substantiate the statement as to the absence of gold 

 deposits with the same positive evidence that exists in reference 

 to coal, but the collateral evidence and inferences have sufficed to 

 demonstrate its truth with respect to all of the deposits that have 

 thus far been reported to carry the metal. 



A great deal of attention has been given in the last 25 years to 

 the so-called gold sands of the Adirondacks. These have been 

 widely advertised as yielding anywhere from $4 or $5 to $50 a ton 

 when subjected to treatment by special processes. Many plants 

 have been erected in different parts of the region based on methods 

 that seem to be the principal consideration of value in the promotion 

 schemes, since the deposits for which they are intended are in no 

 way different from the ordinary glacial and alluvial sands that 

 cover a great part of the Adirondacks. Repeated tests of the sands 

 by the usual procedure of assayers have failed to indicate more 

 than a trace of gold — a few cents a ton at most— such a quantity as 

 may be found in almost any rock material. The discrepancy 

 between the claims of the process promoters and the results of 

 ordinary assay is said to be explainable by the peculiar condition 

 in which the gold exists. The terms " nascent," " atomic " and 

 " volatile " are frequently applied in the prospectuses to convey 

 this idea. A little knowledge of chemical principles suffices to 

 demonstrate the fantastic character of the information published 

 in the interest of these ventures. 



