52 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



north and south and lo miles east and west, in the towns of Brighton, 

 Henrietta and Chili. It is usually of reddish color and has an 

 extreme depth ot lo or 12 feet. The main pits are in the vicinity 

 of Rochester. Common brick, fire brick, building tile, fireproofing 

 and drain tile have been made in the yards. 



The clays of Buffalo and vicinity are the basis of an extensive 

 brickmaking industry, the largest west of the Hudson river. The 

 clays are described by Ries as bowlder clays and modified glacial 

 beds, varying from a foot or less to 60 feet thick. A section on 

 Grand island showed 20 feet of red clay and 14 feet of bowlder clay. 

 There are deposits at Tonawanda and La Salle, and along the shore 

 of Lake Erie south of Buffalo. Besides common building brick the 

 local works have produced pressed brick, hollow brick, earthenware 

 and drain tile. Pottery is made in Buffalo from foreign clays and 

 ornamental brick from the Hamilton shales. 



Clay is worked at Jamestown and Dunkirk, Chautauqua county. 

 At the latter locality the deposit is 20 feet thick, consisting of yellow 

 sandy clay on top and blue clay underneath. 



In the southern part of the State the clays are of comparatively 

 little economic importance. A small output of building brick has 

 been made at Binghamton, Horseheads, Ithaca and a few other 

 localities. The shale formations, however, are of more value, and 

 will be described under a separate head. 



In Jefferson and St Lawrence coimties scattered deposits of 

 clay occur that have been used for common brick manufacture in 

 Watertown, Carthage and Ogdensburg. At Watertown- a deposit 

 20 feet thick consists of red and gray clays resting on Trenton 

 limestone. 



OCCURRENCE OF SHALE 



In addition to soft plastic clays New York has immense and 

 widely distributed resources of shales, some of which are adapted 

 to the manufacture of vitrified paving brick and ornamental brick. 

 A discussion of the possibilities of the shales for paving brick will 

 be found in Bulletin 174 of the New York State Museum. 



The Devonian formations that outcrop in the southern half of 

 the State, between a line drawn from Albany to Buffalo and the 

 Pennsylvania border, include several important shale formations, 

 notably in the Hamilton, Portage and Chemung groups. The shales 

 are exposed in belts with an east-west trend and contain interbedded 

 layers of sandstone which is quarried in many places for flagstone, 

 building stone, etc. Splendid exposures are to be found in the 



