144 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



New York gives an account of the occurrence of wad in Columbia 

 and Dutchess counties which it appears was the source of some 

 commercial ore during the middle part of the last century. Recently 

 the deposits were relocated and explored by Professor Nelson C. 

 Dale, who has prepared a paper ^ on the occurrences for publication 

 by the State Museum. The following abridged account is based on 

 information given by Professor Dale in the paper mentioned. 



The ore occurs in a district that extends some 25 miles north and 

 south and lies mainly within the towns of Canaan, Hillsdale and 

 Ancram, Columbia county. It comprises an area altogether of 125 

 or 150 square miles in the western foothills of the Taconic range. 

 The manganese is distributed within certain swamps or marshes 

 which occupy small depressions in saddles or divides between the 

 hills or in terrace-like benches at the foot of the prominences, usually 

 at an elevation of 1200 to 1400 feet above sea level. These bogs 

 serve as catchment basins for the drainage from the higher ground 

 and discharge into the Hudson river. The area is largely underlaid 

 by slates and schists of Ordovician age. 



The bog manganese is found as nodules and nodular aggregates 

 sometimes cemented into a more or less firm mass, inclosed in a 

 matrix of whitish clay. It is thought that the manganese is derived 

 by leaching of the small amounts present in the country rocks and 

 is carried into the bogs as soluble bicarbonate where its precipitation 

 takes place through oxidation or as the result of reaction with cal- 

 cium bicarbonate. A characteristic section through one of the bog 

 deposits shows at the top 12 inches of brownish clayey loam with 

 nodules and nodular aggregates of wad, then 28 inches of hardpan 

 with occasional bowlders and rock fragments .cemented by man- 

 ganese, and at the base consolidated hardpan carrying no manganese. 

 An analysis of several samples from different localities indicated 

 about 22 per cent of manganese as a maximum. 



One of the localities where the ore was worked in the early days 

 is the Gott-Mesick bog in Spencertown, Columbia county. In the 

 town of Hillsdale are the bogs on the Palmer farm and the Joseph 

 Goodsell farm. Other localities where the ore occurs are the David 

 Parson farm (now owned by Mr Beaver) about i^ miles west of 

 Flatbrook and the R. H. Girdler farm i mile south of Canaan 

 Center. Tests carried out by Professor Dale indicated that the 

 available supplies in the different occurrences were limited to a few 

 hundred tons at most. 



1 Postglacial Manganese in Columbia county, N. Y., N. Y. State Mus. Bui. 

 207-208, 1919, p. 85-100. 



