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on, and in some instances have expended their all, in explorations 
which any one versed in minerals and acquainted with their assoaiations, 
would have known from the beginning were hopelessly fruitless. Com- 
mon pyrites and magnetic pyrites were repeatedly brought to me while 
I was stationed at the U. S. Military Academy, as an instructer of 
chemistry, mineralogy and geology, as specimens of gold ore, silver 
ore and tin ore, by the mine hunters, or by those who had been im- 
posed on; and so fully were they persuaded that the mineral brought 
contained what they supposed, that no assurance without experiments 
would convince them. After examining mineral localities where lead 
and tin ores had been said to have been discovered, I have seen none in 
place, and have reason to believe that the specimens shown to me did 
not originate where they were said to have been found. 
A piece of metallic antimony was shown to me during the last sum- 
mer, and was said to have been found in Putnam county, but it had 
the peculiar foliated crystalline texture that is generally seen in that 
which has been melted, and which is different in aspect from the native 
antimony. While on this subject I will notice another fact that came 
under my observation. Coal was said to have been discovered in the 
primitive region of Putnam county. I was shown a lump of beautiful 
Mauch- Chunk anthracite! I which had been buried by some means un- 
known and dug up, and this was the evidence of the reported coal 
mine. It is hoped that our citizens will no longer suffer themselves to 
be duped by designing persons into mining speculations, most of which 
have a baseless foundation. 
" The copper, silver and lead mine" of Sing-Sing is on the State 
farm, a little north of the State prison. It was worked before the 
revolution by a British officer in New-York. A shaft was sunk 150 
feet, and a level run in the line of bearing of the strata from the bot- 
tom. It was drained a few years ago by a mining company, but was 
not worked. The mine is now filled with water, and its former pro- 
ductiveness is not known. For the above information I am indebted to 
Gen. Ward, of Sing-Sing. The mine is in limestone. No indications 
of silver or lead ore could be seen in the continuation of the stratum in 
which the mine had been opened. Gen. Van Courtland remembers the 
time when it was wrought, and when a boy was in the mines. There 
was a thin seam, he states, in which native silver was found. Several 
levels passed in different directions under the river. Gen. Van Courl- 
land relates an anecdote of a gentleman at a dinner party, after the 
wine had circulated freely, giving £4,000 sterling for one-sixteenth of 
the proprietorship of the mine. The rock is an impure limestone con- 
