132 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM \ 



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a seam of fossil hematite 30 to 38 inches thick. The ore is reported ! 

 to have averaged 36 to 38 per cent iron. Above the main seam is a 

 4-inch seam of hematite and one or more thin Hmestone layers. ; 



West of this property are open cut mines worked in 1887 and i 

 1888 by the Furnaceville Iron Co. I 



Ontario mines. The town of Ontario, Wayne county, has yielded ; 

 most of the ore output from the western Clinton belt. The workings ; 

 extend almost continuously across the whole width of the township ; 

 and for one-fourth of a mile and more back from the outcrop. The ■ 

 bed continues east into the adjoining town of Williamson for at 

 least 2 miles but has not been mined in that part. The line of ; 

 workings lies 3 miles south of Lake Ontario and | mile north of the ] 

 Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburg branch of the New York Central i 

 lines. The ore is the fossil type and averages 20 inches thick. The > 

 Furnaceville Iron Co., the Ontario Iron Co. and the Wayne Iron Ore 

 Co. have been engaged in mining here in recent years by the open : 

 cut method. The ore is stripped in longitudinal stretches, the width 

 of which is determined by the operating radius of the shovel, usually \ 

 about 45 feet. The debris from the overburden is spoiled to the j 

 north of the cut from which the ore was removed in the previous \ 

 operation. When the bench has been exposed it is loosened by ; 

 blasting and then loaded by a smaller shovel into cars for shipment, j 



S Limonites of Dutchess and Columbia Counties i 



The limonite deposits of Dutchess and Columbia counties are a ) 

 part of a long series of similar deposits that extend from Vermont ) 

 through Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and south to \ 

 Alabama along the main Appalachian uplift; They occur in the j 

 belt of metamorphosed Paleozoic sediments which lies to the west ; 

 of the Precambrian crystalline belt represented in New York State j 

 by the Hudson Highlands. j 



There are two principal groups of deposits; the one running i 

 northeast from Fishkill in the valley of Fishkill creek, Dutchess j 

 county, and the other farther east following the north-south valley | 

 traversed by the Harlem Railroad from the Highlands in Dutchess I 

 county to Hillsdale, Columbia county. The latter group is the ; 

 more important. The geologic formations within the vicinity com- ' 

 prise Precambrian gneisses and stratified quartzites, limestones and ; 

 schists. The quartzites lie immediately on the gneiss and have j 

 been assigned to the Lower Cambrian; the limestones and schists ; 

 above are supposed to range from Cambrian to Ordovician in age. ■ 



