MINERAL RESOURCES OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 21/ 



divided particles difficult to separate from the gangue. In some 

 places, however, it forms a considerable percentage of the total mass, 

 and in such form that it could be readily recovered as a byproduct 

 in the process of separation of the graphite. At one of the mines 

 P3n-ite concentrates of commercial grade are now produced. 



Pyrrhotite in southeastern New York. A body of pyrrhotite of 

 some size occurs on Anthony's Nose, the bold prominence that arises 

 on the east shore of the Hudson river just north of Peekskill. Mine 

 operations were carried on at the locality for several years suc- 

 ceeding 1865, the output being used for sulphuric acid manufacture 

 in works situated nearby on the river front. The ore is said to have 

 carried about 28 per cent sulphur in the average and to have been 

 free from arsenic. The deposit was mined to a depth of from 300 

 to 400 feet; and its thickness in the workings ranged from 20 to 30 

 feet and the width on the line of strike 50 feet. The immediate 

 walls consist of a light-colored gneiss composed of quartz, plagioclase 

 and a little hornblende, but a basic gneiss that may represent an 

 altered gabbro outcrops within a short distance. 



Pyrite in shales. An occurrence of pyrite in bedded shales that 

 was recently brought to the writer's notice deserves some mention 

 in this place on account of the unusual conditions it illustrates, 

 although belonging to a type that is not at all uncommon. The 

 association of pyrite with clay sediments is so frequent as to be 

 hardly noteworthy. In the present instance, however, the pyrite is 

 more than ordinarily abundant and forms nodules and aggregates 

 of such size that it can be readily freed from the enclosing rock, 

 and when so separated is of commercial grade. The deposit consists 

 of about 25 feet of beds comprising the Brayman shales, as exposed 

 in the vicinity of Schoharie village, on the west side of Schoharie 

 creek. The locality, where the pyrite occurs in considerable abun- 

 dance, is on the Gebhard farm, now owned by R. Veenfliet jr, just 

 outside of the village. For some hundreds of feet the shale occurs 

 in a vertical bank topped by hard thick beds of Cobleskill dolomite, 

 the two formations inclining at a low angle to the south and gradu- 

 ally disappearing from view under cover of the higher strata as they 

 are followed in that direction. Throughout the 15 feet or more 

 of the exposed section of the shales the pyrite is found in considerable 

 abundance. It occurs in different forms; as small crystals and 

 grains disseminated through the mass, as nodular aggregates from 

 the size of a walnut up to 3 or 4 inches in diameter, and as one or 

 more bands constituted of coalescent aggregates which are not well 

 enough exposed in the bank to show their thickness and continuity. 



