278 



Report of the State Geologist. 



The largest quarry now in operation in the Corniferous limestone is at 

 the Indian Reservation in the Onondaga valley, three miles south of Syracuse. 

 Kelly Bros, operate the principal part of it. They employ thirty five men, 

 and their annual output is 12,000 cubic yards. Patrick McElroy works the 

 south end of the quarry. He employs eight men a part of the year, taking 

 out 750 cubic yards during the season. The section exposed here embraces 

 thirty-seven feet, four inches. The bottom is about five feet above the 

 Oriskany sandstone. The top layer is shaly. Fossils are exceedingly abun- 

 dant at these quarries, especially in the shaly layers. 



In the Solvay quarry at Split Rock, the Corniferous section shows at 

 the southwest corner, twelve feet, ten inches of compact or shaly layers of 

 limestone with shaly partings. Dimension stones are quarried from the 

 compact layers. John Kearney, near Onondaga hill, quarries 1,250 yards 

 annually, and Job James, in the same locality, 250 yards. A. E, Alvord owns 

 a large quarry one-half mile east of Manlms, where the section shows seven- 

 teen feet, six inches of the lower part of the Corniferous limestone, nearly 

 all of which is in compact layers of convenient thickness. 



There are several other grey lime quarries in the vicinity of 

 Manlius, but the expense of transportation precludes extensive operations 

 at present. E. B. Alvord <fc Co. operate a small quarry at the base of the 

 Corniferous limestone, one mile south of Jamesville, on the east side of the 

 Reservoir. William Maylie's quarry, one-half mile southeast from Marcellus 

 village on the Cedarville road, is in the upper layers of the Corniferous, as 

 are also John Clancy's and Martin Hogan's in the same vicinity. 



The section in Maylie's quarry shows seventeen feet, two inches. At 

 the top, four feet, three inches is shaly and very f ossilif erous ; the other layers 

 are quite compact. Several thin nodular layers of black chert occur. 

 Some of the lower layers of limestone are quite bituminous and very dark 

 colored, but weather to light grey. The cut stone for the dam at the foot 

 of Otisco lake was taken from Maylie's quarry. Mr. Maylie also burns quick- 

 lime, running one kiln, Nodules of iron pyrites in some localities very 

 injuriously affect the value of these upper beds for building purposes, but at 

 these last mentioned quarries the rock is quite free from it. John Keenan's 

 quarry a few rods south of Corrigan's, at Skaneateles, shows about four feet 

 of hard limestone next to the Oriskany sandstone, and above that five feet 

 of shaly limestone in which are a few hard layers three to four inches 

 thick. The material for the (rlenside mills was quarried near the mills. 

 .1. II. Ketchum's quarry one-half mile south of Skaneateles falls near the creek, 



