QUARRY MATERIALS OF NEW YORK l6j 



of the quarry is 2 miles north of Batchellerville, on the road to 

 Day, on the farm of Adelbert Gordon. The nearest railroad point 

 is Northville, the northern terminus of a branch that connects at 

 Fonda with the New York Central lines, necessitating a wagon 

 haulage of 8 or 9 miles over a somewhat rough country. 



There are two openings on the property, situated about one-fourth 

 of a mile east of the highway at the base of the ridge which forms 

 the steep eastern slope of the Sacandaga river valley. The lower 

 or westerly pit has been worked to a depth of about 50 feet. Its 

 horizontal dimensions are about 75 feet by 50 feet, indicating the 

 usual stock form in which most of the larger bodies of pegmatite 

 occur, but the whole area of the pegmatite is not shown. The 

 minerals are in coarse crystals and fairly well segregated, though 

 there is considerable graphic intergrowth of quartz and feldspar. 

 The former is found also in pure masses of white and pink color 

 up to a foot in diameter. The feldspar is mostly grayish micro- 

 cline, but is intergrown to some extent with a white variety which 

 microscopically corresponds to albite. The largest individuals ob- 

 served were fully 3 feet in length. Much waste in quarrying was 

 incurred from the presence of abundant mica and owing to the 

 existence of an included lens of the wall rock. A large quantity of 

 quartz, mica and mixed material was left at the quarry after the 

 feldspar had been sorted for shipment. 



. A feature of this quarry is the fine crystals of muscovite and 

 beryl which occasionally attain very unusual dimensions. The mus- 

 covite forms books and columnar crystals that measure a foot or 

 more in diameter and from an inch or so to 10 inches thick. The 

 mica, however, is not generally suitable for cutting as it shows 

 rulings and contains inclusions of iron oxides. The beryls are the 

 largest that have been found in the State; one crystal, now in the 

 State Museum, has a length of 27 inches and a diameter of 10 

 inches. The larger ones are opaque and greenish in color, but some 

 small crystals have been found that were fairly clear aquamarines. 

 They show the hexagonal prism faces but are not terminated. 



A second pit lies to the east of the one described and is of smaller 

 size. The pegmatite has the same general character as noted but 

 shows some garnet. 



There appears to be a good body of pegmatite at this place, 

 though the contact against the country gneisses is not so well dis- 

 closed as to permit an estimate of the exact size. The gneiss is a 

 biotite variety with augen of feldspar and shows a foliation that 

 strikes about N. 50 E. and dips 30 southeast. Apparently the 



