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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [Vol. IX. 



quantities and purity to be profitably worked. The terms 

 of Mr. Walker's report apply to India and many other places 

 where plumbago exists over wide areas. In North America 

 it is found in the older rocks of the Appalachian chain, from 

 Alabama to Canada. Its occurrence is said to have been 

 reported in great purity, and in veins from 18 inches to 5 

 feet thick, in five different localities. If such graphite 

 were abundant, with fairly cheap labour and good means 

 of communication, Ceylon might tremble for her supremacy 

 in this branch of commerce ; but we find it added, that of the 

 Eastern deposits those of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New 

 York, and Canada are of the crystalline or foliated variety, are 

 the best known, and are the only ones which are at present 

 being worked. The amorphous plumbagos found in the 

 Southern States are said to be of such a nature that purifi- 

 cation is economically impossible. They can be used only in 

 the crude state, and but for few purposes. The attention 

 being paid to the mineral in America may be judged from the 

 fact that samples had been received and reported on by The 

 Joseph Dixon Crucible Company from no fewer than 33 locali- 

 ties between October, 1877, and January, 1882. Mr. Walker's 

 notice of the " Origin and Characteristics" of the United 

 States graphites, I append as a note.* 



Under the heading " Productive Localities" Mr. Walker 

 states :— 



" The only place in the United States where graphite is now 

 mined successfully is at Ticonderoga, New York. This property, 

 owned originally by the American Graphite Company, now 

 belongs to The Joseph Dixon Crucible Company, of Jersey City, 



* " Origin and Characteristics. — Graphite is now generally conceded 

 to be of organic origin— the result of the metamorphisrn of some of the 

 products of destructive distillation of vegetable tissue. It occurs in 

 veins, beds, and disseminated through strata (graphitic schists). The 

 veins occur principally in New York, Canada, and the Far West. 

 They are true fissures in gneissoid rock. The vein graphite is 

 usually associated with calcite and quartz. Pyroxene, mica, and 

 apatite are sometimes found with it. Crystals of calcite are found, 

 which on being split show scales of foliated graphite along the planes 

 of cleavage. Graphitic schists are found in the same regions as the 



