GYPSUM DEPOSITS OP"" NEW YORK 37 



side, in a cut made by the railroad company for the purpose of 

 filling in low ground, the gypsum occurring in courses 45^ and 

 2^ feet in thickness and very accessible. At one tiniie, as men- 

 tioned by Mr Delafield, the plaster industry along the Semeca river 

 was an important one, and the output amounted tO' 5000 tons an- 

 nually. It has been abandoned for a long period, however, and 

 there is little prospect of its resumption. The deposits are all, no 

 doubt, of the impure " mixed " type, while any that might be en- 

 countered under the drift of Junius or Tyre townships would re- 

 quire shaft mining and that too under unfavoirable conditions such 

 as wet ground and the like. 



Wayne county 



Only the northern or lower portion of the Salina shales outcrops 

 in Wayne county and that only along the southern border in a belt 

 averaging perhiaps 6 miles wide. Although the contact betwieen 

 the Camillus and Vernon shales is not sharply defined, we may 

 infer from the thickness of the Salina shales in the county that 

 the exposed part lies below the Camillus and in the main perhaps 

 below the horizon of the salt beds. Wells drilled in Clyde .show 

 the Salina to be 840 feet thick at that point, and at AHoway it is 

 580 feet thick. 



Gypsum is said to be exposed at various places along the line of 

 the canal and the New Yo^rk Central Railroad. At Clyde it is 

 found in wells at a depth of 25 feet, at Lyons at 40 feet, and at 

 Palmyra at the same depth. Gypsum was at one time cjuarried 

 at a point 2 miles west of Newark, where the railroad and canal 

 pass between two hills. North of the canal, on lot 85 owned at 

 that time by Winslow Heth, quarries were opened as early as 1832 

 and by 1839, 2000 to 3000 tons had been extracted. The gypsum 

 is described by HalP as being " mostly lamjellar, transparent and 

 of that variety which receives the local name of isinglass plaster." 

 It was said to occur with varicoloired gypseous marl and to have 

 the form of '' large rounded, irregi^lar masses." 



South of the canal was Blackmar's quarry which was woTked at 

 the same time and contained plaster of similar quality. Gypsum 

 has also been cjuarried around Port Gibson [see descriptions under 

 Ontario county] and undoubtedly many similar pockets underlie 

 the area northeast of Port Gibson in Wayne county. Occurring as 

 they do in the lower Vernon shales, the deposits are not likely to 



' Geol. Rep't 4th Dist. (1837) 1838. p. 326. 



