64 
[Assembly 
Lakes George and Champlain. Limestone, suitable for common and 
hydraulic lime, are abundant in the same part of the district, and 
also on the Helderberg and Catskill mountain ranges; but the 
facilities for exploration among these mountains are not so great 
as near the river. The Highlands afford fine granite and gneiss 
for building stones, and several quarries have been opened. The 
value and importance of the rocky masses of the district are only 
beginning to be appreciated.^ They w^ill eventually form inex- 
haustible sources of profitable industry to individuals, and of pros- 
perity to the State. 
Clay, suitable for bricks and coarse pottery, abounds in the ter- 
tiary formations along the Hudson and its tributary streams, 
which empty into it above the Highlands, and in a few places below 
those mountains. There are extensive manufactories of bricks 
along the banks of the Hudson, from which the New-York market 
is principally supplied. From 75,000,000 to 100,000,000 of bricks 
are made annually on the Hudson river, and from 4,000,000 to 
5,000,000, at Huntington Long, Island. 
Lime is extensively manufactured in Albany, Orange, Ulster and 
Dutchess counties, but I have no data from which to estimate the 
quantities. 
Iron ore is so abundant in the Highland range of mountains, 
from New-Jersey to Canada, that it may be estimated as sufficient 
to supply the wants of our country for ages. It occurs in some 
places disseminated in grains and nodules through the rocks; in 
others, it forms veins intersecting the strata, or beds, or is inter- 
stratified with the adjacent rocks. The beds of ore vary from a 
few inches to many feet in thickness, and some of them can be tra- 
* It may be well to remark in this place, upon the importance of knowing and testing 
well the durability of building stones and marbles, before empU)ying them in important 
public works, or even in private dwellings. The different beds of rock, or even the dif- 
ferent layers in the same bed, and in the same quarry, are frequently very different in 
their capacities for enduring the vicissitudes of the weather unchanged; a quarry, there- 
fore, should always be examined by a practised and discriminating eye, in addition to 
the usual tests applied to building stones, before they are used for important buildings, 
bridges, aqueducts, locks, or other public works. Much care should also be used in 
the selections of stone for McAddmized roads. Millions might have been saved in our 
country, by judicious selection of materials for the above mentioned purposes. Much 
of the marble from some of the beds at Sing-Sing cmmbles to a calcareous sand, and is 
unfit for building ; other beds are unaffected by exposure to the weather. Examples of 
this crumbling marble may be seen around the capitol and academy parks in Albany, 
where this marble has been Uied. 
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