No. 275.J 
16 
some tons have been extracted.''^ There is also an important locality 
near the village of Alexandria, in Essex county .f This mineral is 
used in the manufacture of pencils, and for diminishing friction; it also 
constitutes the basis of the silve?' lead) extensively used as a coating for 
cast iron. 
9. Bitumen. — Under this species is to be placed the oily bituminous 
substance called petroleum, and known with us by the names of Seneca 
or Genesee oil. There is a celebrated locality in the town of Cuba, in 
Allegany county .J It also occurs in Chautauque, Erie, Seneca and Al- 
bany counties, although in comparatively small quantities. It appears 
to have some connexion with the carburetted hydrogen gas evolved in 
various parts of the State. Other localities will probably be discovered 
during the progress of the survey. 
10. Sulphur. This well known mineral, though for the most part 
confined to volcanic countries, has nevertheless been found in the State 
of New- York. It occurs in a pure form in a granitic rock near West- 
Point,§ and a few miles west of that place it has been found in a quartz 
rock. Small masses are also occasionally met with in the gypsum beds 
of Onondaga county, and it is not unfrequently deposited in a nearly 
pure form by waters charged with sulphuretted hydrogen gas. As the 
result of the decomposition of iron pyrites it is very abundant, but it is 
then almost always too impure to be classed under this head. 
11. Amber. This mineral so constantly accompanies the beds of lig- 
nite and iron pyrites which occur in New- Jersey, that it will doubtless 
be found in the similar deposits on the western side of Staten-Island. 
12. Anthracite and Coal. — There are many localities of these im- 
portant minerals in this State, which must be noticed in the general 
work; but unfortunately, they have not hitherto been found in quanti- 
ties sufficient for any useful purpose. Although large sums have been 
expended in researches for these minerals, and high expectations in some 
instances excited, they occur only in very thin layers, and in geological 
relations which differ entirely from those of the true coal measures. 
* Prof. Mather's Report for 1838. 
t See an interesting notice of this locaiity by George W. Clinton, Esq. in the Transactioiu 
of the Albany Institute, i. 233. 
X Mr. Vanuxem's Report for 1837; and Prof. Silliraan's Notice of a Fountain of Petroleum 
in Allegany county, N. Y. — Silliman's Journal, xxiii. 97. 
§ Major Douglass, in Cleaveland's Mineralogy, 
