312 F\ REPORT OF PROGRESS. E. W. CLAYPOLE. 



cover the outcrops of the adjoining beds, rendering the 

 place of contact indistinct. 



The Clinton fossil ore beds and their adjacent strata ap- 

 pear to be less developed in this township than farther 

 north. They have never yet been opened (1883.) Whether 

 they exist or not in workable condition is doubtful. They 

 should occur north of the upper or northern face of the 

 Iron sandstone. (At Millerstown the lower layer of this 

 sandstone is the block ore and is about three feet thick, 

 and the other beds occur within about two hundred feet of 

 this.) It would not be difficult to find the place of the block 

 ore in the Blue mountain, and its presence may be inferred 

 from the occurrence of heavy siliceous fragments among the 

 wreckage of the Iron sandstone. The presence of the soft 

 fossil ore may likewise be inferred from the presence of 

 small fragments in various places along the side of the 

 mountain. It is possibly indicated by an outcrop of clay 

 in which, however, several shafts sunk for twenty feet failed 

 to discover the ore.* 



An unfavorable sign is the absence of any well marked 

 ridge of the sand-rock or ore sandstone lying between the 

 two upper ore beds. A perceptible terrace may, however, 

 be detected along the north slope of the mountain and about 

 150 feet below the summit. This is in all probability formed 

 by the outcrop of the sand-rock and would prove a good 

 indication of the place of the ore beds. 



The Onondaga group, (V.) 



The Onondaga group is very well developed in Rye town- 

 ship, there being nearly 1400 feet of red shale and red and 

 green shale overlying the iron sandstone and fossil ore beds. 

 The del ails of this part of the group are not well exposed 

 in their lower portion; but a quarry near the west end of the 



♦Among vortical beds, such as those of the Blue mountain, a shaft is not 

 the bed meana of discovering ore, because it continues in the same or nearly 

 the same stratum from top to bottom. A more systematic and likely-to-be-suo- 

 (■cssiiil until d is a tunnel run in at right angles with the beds. This would 

 cut directly across them and whatever lies within the space penetrated cannot 

 escape discovery. 



