34 
ECONOMICAL MINERALOGY. 
ochre by Mr. C. Prescott, who also opened another bed about three quarters of a mile south of 
the former, and which has since been worked by an iron company in Salisbury, Connecticut.* 
Copake Ore Bed. This is situated about two miles northeast of Copake Flats. Although 
not extensively worked, the ore is thought to be abundant. 
In addition to these beds of hematitic ore, Mr. Mather has noticed, in the Report just quoted, 
several localities of bog iron ore. One is in the valley of Kline Kill, three or four miles east 
of Kinderhook, and is thought to be extensive. Others less important are noticed in the towns 
of Claverack, Beekman and Austerlitz. 
Limonite, principally in the form of bog ore, has been found in small quantities in the 
counties of Ulster, Sullivan, Delaware, Broome, Tioga, Otsego and Cattaraugus; but I am 
not aware that in any of them it is in sufficient abundance to warrant the expectation that it 
will be of any value in the manufacture' of iron. 
Albany and Saratoga Counties. Bog iron ore occurs in various parts of these coun¬ 
ties. It is here, as elsewhere, usually found in swampy or marshy ground, and affords a fine 
illustration of those chemical operations which are continually going on in nature; as the ore 
is evidently deposited from water, which, by its excess of carbonic acid, originally held the 
oxide of iron in solution. From Albany county a considerable quantity of this ore has been 
obtained, and its principal use has been to mix with the magnetic oxide, by which means the 
quality of the resulting iron is said to be much improved. 
Washington County. Brown hematite has been found in various parts of this county, 
and some of the beds are of considerable value. At the head of South Bay is an abundant 
deposit, and there is also an extensive locality of the same variety about two miles southeast 
of the village of Whitehall. The specimens of this ore which I have seen, are generally 
similar to many of those found at the beds in Dutchess county. 
* ♦ 
Essex and Clinton Counties. There are but few localities of limonite in these counties. 
A small and probably quite unimportant bed of the bog ore occurs about a mile north of Port 
Henry in Essex, and the same variety is said to be abundant on the head waters of the Sara¬ 
nac in Clinton county. 
Franklin County. Bog iron ore is found at Malone and several other places. It is only 
at Westville, however, that it is found in sufficient abundance to be used in the process of 
reduction. 
St. Lawrence County. There is scarcely a town in this county in which bog iron ore 
does not occur in beds of greater or less extent. Dr. Emmons advances the idea that all the 
deposits of this kind found here have been produced by the decomposition of pyritous iron, 
and the oxides intermixed with it. “ This is the case certainly,” he says, “ with some of the 
larger collections, as their formation can be traced directly to the parent rock, in which the 
iron pyrites is largely disseminated, and which is also undergoing constant decomposition.”! 
Mather. New-York Geological Reports, 1838. 
t New- York Geological Reports, 1838. 
