98 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



series, and the rocks are regarded by the writer as of igneous 

 origin. The ore bodies must then be considered excessively basic 

 segregations squeezed or drawn out into apparent beds. The largest 

 of them exhibit a most extraordinary series of bulging folds and 

 all are liable to rolls, pinches and forkings. Despite the igneous 

 affinities of the wall rock the bedded shape of the ores has sug- 

 gested to most observers a sedimentary origin so that this has been 

 hitherto the most generally accepted view of them. The problem 

 will be fully stated in the subsequent descriptions in association 

 with which the points pro and con can be most significantly stated. 



Several minor deposits are in granitic gneiss. Under this head 

 belong the abandoned ore bed of the Essex Mining Company, south 

 of Port Henry and the Lee in the outskirts of the village. One 

 small occurrence, the Steele bed, just southeast of Elizabethtown, 

 has Grenville limestone immediately over it. The cross section at 

 the mine has been earlier mentioned when speaking of the distribu- 

 tion of the Grenville. 



The titaniferous varieties are without exception in the basic 

 gabbros. They form irregular masses, of indefxiiite shape and ex- 

 tension and of not very sharp definition against the walls. The 

 ore is filled with the ordinary minerals of the rock and is merely 

 a phase of the latter unusually rich in magnetite and ilmenite. 



The mines and abandoned pits are all situated east of the great 

 anorthosite exposures, and except for one or two outlying titanif- 

 erous bodies range along a belt which runs a little west of north 

 from Port Henry, through Mineville to Elizabethtown. This ar- 

 rangement does not appear to have any fundamental connection 

 with any large geological feature and is doubtless fortuitous. 



Historical outline of the iron industry 



History. The first of the ore bodies to be discovered was the 

 one which is now called the Cheever, but which when Professor 

 Emmons was preparing his report, 1836-42, was known as the 

 Walton or Old Crown Point vein [see Emmons's Report on the 

 Second District, p. 237]. Nevertheless the name Cheever appears 

 in Professor Beck's report on the Mineralogy of New York [p. 15]. 

 The Cheever had been worked for 50 years when Professor Emmons 

 visited it, and this would place its opening at 1785-90. The ore 

 beds at Mineville were known in 1835-40, but the largest of them, 

 as now revealed in the "21 " mine (so named from the number of 

 the old land lot) was first opened in 1846. It is evident that the 



