278 
DISCOVERY  OF  EMERY  IN  CHESTER,  MASS. 
magnetic  iron  ore,  originally  discovered  by  Dr.  H.  S.  Lucas, 
has  been  known,  and  endeavors  were  made  by  that  gentleman  to 
organize  a  company  for  the  purpose  of  smelting  these  ores.  In 
consequence  of  this  agitation,  I  was  employed  by  John  B.  Taft, 
Esq.,  on  the  19th  of  October,  1863,  to  examine  the  locality  and 
to  make  report  of  my  results  to  him. 
On  examination  of  my  specimens  of  minerals,  after  returning 
to  Boston,  and  my  notes  for  sectional  profiles  of  the  rocky  strata 
containing  the  iron  ore,  I  found  that  the  minerals,  margarite 
and  chloritoid,  in  talcose,  hornblende,  and  mica  slate  rocks,  in- 
dicated the  occurrence  of  emery,  the  association  of  the  rocks  and 
minerals  being  identical  with  conditions  known  to  exist  in  the 
localities  of  emery  in  Asia  Minor. 
I  therefore  called  the  attention  of  the  owners  of  the  property 
to  these  facts,  and  directed  search  to  be  made  for  emery,  and 
that  every  mineral  resembling  it  should  be  sent  to  me  for  exam- 
ination. Little  attention  was  paid  to  this  prediction  at  the  time, 
and  not  till  I  had  invited  Dr.  Lucas,  who  resides  in  Chester, 
by  personal  representations  and  solicitations,  to  make  the  re- 
quired search,  the  characters  of  emery  being  fully  described  to 
him. 
On  his  return  to  Chester  he  soon  learned  that  the  miners  were 
complaining  of  the  great  hardness  of  the  supposed  iron  ore,  and 
that  no  less  than  forty  drills  were  dulled  in  boring  a  single  hole 
for  blasting.  He  then  sent  me  pieces  of  this  hard  rock,  in  the 
belief  that  it  was  the  emery  I  had  predicted.  On  examination 
it  was  found  to  scratch  quartz  and  topaz  readily,  and  to  have  all 
the  properties  of  emery  ;  a  chemical  analysis  proved  it  to  be 
identical  with  the  emery  of  Naxos. 
The  owners,  resident  in  Boston,  being  notified  of  this  dis- 
covery, went  with  me  to  the  locality  on  the  11th  of  October 
last,  when  a  full  exploration  of  the  premises  was  made.  Tivere 
are  several  large  beds  of  rich  magnetic  iron  ore  at  this  locality, 
and  the  emery  being  magnetic  (as  it  always  is,)  had  caused  it 
to  be  mistaken  for  magnetic  iron  ore,  and  many  tons  of  it  had 
been  smelted  with  the  carbonate  of  iron  and  hematite  in  the 
Berkshire  county  iron  furnaces,  without  a  suspicion,  notwith- 
standing its  refractory  nature,  that  the  ore  was  emery,  with 
only  a  small  admixture  of  iron  ore. 
