CATSKILL DIVISION. 
315 
The Copper mine, as it is called, in Roxbury, Delaware county, is on the land of Mr. Leo¬ 
nard, on the Beaver-dam creek, about three miles and a half from Roxbury village, on the 
road to Mooresville. A little copper ore was observed in the beds of shale and conglomerate. 
Whether the supposed body of ore was expected to be discovered in the bed of shale, or in a 
vein which appears as a broad fissure in the rocks, is not now known. This “ mine ” was 
opened before the French war of 1755, and reopened in 1827 or 1828. Indications of copper 
are said to have been very distinct, when last opened, by gentlemen in whom I can place con¬ 
fidence. Scarce any traces of copper are visible among the rubbish of the mine at the present 
time. The son of the owner informed me that the Germans who came there last to open the 
mine, some years since, tried the water of a spring from the hill side, and found it to contain 
copper. He gave their mode of trial as follows : “ Water from the spring was boiled down 
to a small quantity in an iron kettle ; a silver sixpenny piece was then introduced, and taken 
out coated with copper.” Any one acquainted with the relative chemical affinities, knows 
this to be impossible, as the copper, if any, would be precipitated by the iron of the kettle. 
Copper would precipitate silver from solution, but silver would not precipitate copper under 
such circumstances. Some deception must have been practised, if the above statement of the 
process be correct. 
Another mine, a “ silver mine,” as it was called, was showed me on the bank of Dry brook, 
about three miles above Arkville, which is at the junction of the Bushkill and Dry brook with 
the east branch of the Delaware. A handsome adit has been excavated at the juncture of the 
grey grit with the red shale, leaving the former rock as a solid substantial rock roof. At the 
end of the adit, which penetrates horizontally some thirty or forty feet, a shaft has been sunk, 
and it is said that rooms of some size have been excavated in the rock below ; but the shaft 
was full of water, so that nothing more could be examined than the adit. The mineral which 
is supposed to have caused this excavation, was common pyrites, which abounds at the junc¬ 
tion of the grit and shale. It decomposes readily, causing the shale to crumble away by its 
decomposing action and the crystallizing power of the resulting salts. 
Specimens of the black sulphuret, and of the blue and green carbonates of copper in the 
gritty shale containing vegetable impressions, were shown to me from near Delhi, Delaware 
county. If the stratum from which the specimens were obtained, is of the thickness of two 
feet, and as rich as the specimens exhibited to me, it would be important for exploration. As 
the discoverers did not communicate to me the locality, I can form no judgment of its impor¬ 
tance. 
A “ coal mine” has been opened in Sullivan county, about one and a half miles west of 
Red bridge, which latter place is where the line between Ulster and Sullivan is crossed by 
the Delaware and Hudson canal. It is a bed of black carbonaceous shale, four and a half to 
five feet thick, with thin seams of anthracite interlaminated, from the thickness of paper to 
that of thick pasteboard. The shale contains vegetable impressions. It has been opened on 
the right bank of the Sandberg creek, about thirty feet deep in the dip of the strata ; and a 
seam of pure anthracite is said to occur in the shale, six to nine inches thick. I did not see 
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