ECKEL. 1 
NEW YORK. 
349 
The kilns in the central New York district are described a as egg- 
shaped, 10 feet in diameter at the top, 12 feet at the middle, and 3^ 
feet at the bottom, with a height of 28 to 42 feet. There are usually 
several kilns built together in an embankment of very heavy masonry, 
so constructed against a hillside that the raw material can be conven- 
iently conveyed there from the quarry and the burned cement easily 
removed from the bottom of the kiln. The kilns are built of lime- 
stone and lined either with sandstone or lire brick. 
When a kiln is ready to be filled a cord of dry, hard, 4-foot wood is put into the 
bottom and covered 4 inches deep with coarse anthracite coal, then a layer 1 foot 
thick of cement rock, succeeded by another layer of coal, partly coarse and partly 
fine. This is repeated till the kiln is filled to the top, which required about 10 tons 
of coal and 15 cords of stone, equal to 1,500 bushels of cement. Then the fire is 
started at the bottom and gradually works its way upward until the whole mass is 
glowing with heat. After two or three days the gate or door in the bottom is opened 
and through it the burned cement rock is drawn to the amount of 250 to 300 bushels 
per day, fresh coal and rock being constantly added to keep the kiln full to the top. 
One cord of cement rock makes 100 bushels of cement. 
Analyses of natural cements, central New York. 
Silica (Si0 2 ) 
Alumina (A1 2 3 ) . 
Iron oxide (Fe 2 3 ) 
Lime(CaO) 
Magnesia (MgO) . 
1 
2 
3 
20. 30 
16. 56 
35.43 
| 13.67 
10.77 
9.92 
47.48 
39. 50 
33.67 
18.55 
22.27 
20. 98 
24.10 
11.45 
40.22 
20.60 
1. Brown Cement Co., Manlius, Onondaga County. W. M. Smith, analyst. Twentieth Ann. Rept. 
U. S. Geol. Survey, pt. 6, p. 428. 
2. Near Chi ttenango, Madison Comity. L. C Beck, analyst. "Mineralogy of New York," p. 80. 
3. South of Utica, Oneida County. Gillmore, "Limes, Cements, and Mortars," p. 125. 
4. Average of preceding three analyses. 
AKRON-BUFFALO DISTRICT. 
In Eric County natural-cement plants have long been established at 
Akron and Buffalo. The bed of cement rock used varies in thickness 
from 5 to 8 feet. It is a firm, fine-grained, compact rock of a blue- 
gray color, weathering to a yellowish white. The Buffalo plant works 
its cement rock by quarrying methods, stripping off the overlying 
limestones, but the plants at Akron all obtain their raw material by 
mining. 
None of the analyses given below are entirely satisfactory. Accord- 
ing to Mr. Uriah Cummings these analyses represent the composition 
of a bed of limestone occurring in the same quarries with the cement 
rock, but not actually used for cement. 
a Luther, D. J). The economic geology of Onondaga County, N. Y. Fifteenth Ann. Rept. N. Y. 
State Geologist, vol. 1, pp. 241-303. 1897. 
