8 



NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



a very substantial increase in the development of our resources, in 

 which the local industry should participate as fully as possible. 



The present bulletin embodies the results of a survey of the 

 Adirondack graphite districts, made in the summer of 1917. It 

 aims to give a comprehensive estimate of the resources of the region 

 so far brought to notice and to provide such information about the 

 local geological conditions and other features which affect the out- 

 come of mining and concentration of the graphite as may be useful 

 in forwarding the future progress of the industry. In view of the 

 current conditions, the publication of a report upon the Adirondack 

 deposits which have so long occupied a prominent place in the 

 industry of our country, may be held to be timely. 



The writer would like to acknowledge his indebtedness to the 

 many who have shown interest in the work or have assisted him in 

 other ways. To Prof. George H. Chadwick he stands under 

 especial obligations. The topographic maps of the graphite dis- 

 tricts are in a large measure his contribution and he has also given 

 freely of advice and suggestion in the study of the complex problems 

 of geology — a service that can scarcely be expressed or valued by 

 this formal acknowledgment. 



EARLY MINING DEVELOPMENTS 



The first attempt to extract graphite or " black lead," as it is 

 popularly called, from the Adirondack rocks in any commercial way 

 was on Lead hill (Chilson hill of some authors) near Ticonderoga, 

 Essex county, N. Y. Graphite had been known to exist in this 

 locality for a long time. Emmons mentions it in 1842, 1 and Beck 

 gives a brief account of the occurrence. 2 In the fifties the deposits 

 were being exploited by a company that eventually became the 

 American Graphite Company. The Joseph Dixon Crucible Com- 

 pany, now of Jersey City, N. J., the first enterprise to import and 

 manufacture graphite products in this country, took over the 

 American Graphite Company in the eighties and has since been 

 engaged in mining at one or another of its properties on Lead hill, 

 at the Lakeside locality, at Hague, and at Graphite in Warren 

 county. 



About the year 1902 the Adirondack deposits began to attract 

 general attention, and in the following years many prospects were 

 opened, companies organized and mills for treating the ores were 



1 Emmons, E., Nat. Hist. N. Y. Geology of the Second District, p. 420. 



2 Beck, Nat. Hist. N. Y. Mineralogy, pt 3. P- 96-97, 1842- 



