is widely distributed throughout the state, and great quantities of it are crushed for road-making, railway ballasts, and concrete, but as the prevailing colours are greyish or drab it is little used in the walls of buildings. In 1908 the total value of the output of this stone was $2,584,559. Three distinct varieties of sandstone are quarried extensively. Those popularly known as “bluestones” belong to the Hamilton period of the Devonian formation and occur mainly between the Hudson and Delaware rivers. They are dark blue-grey, fine grained and durable, and are much used for flagging and kerbing and for sills, caps and steps. Medina sandstones occur throughout a belt averaging about 10 m. wide along the S. shore of Lake Ontario and are either red or grey; the red are used for building, the grey for street paving. A more durable and more beautiful stone for building is the reddish or reddish-brown Potsdam sandstone of which there are extensive formations on the N.W. border of the Adirondacks. The value of all sandstones quarried in 1908 was $1,774,843, an amount exceeded by no other state. Several choice marbles are obtained in the eastern counties. From Tuckahoe, Westchester county, has been taken white marble, used in some of the finest buildings in New York City, and a similar marble is obtained in Putnam and Dutchess counties. Near Gouverneur, St Lawrence county, is a large quarry of coarsely crystalline magnesian limestone, used as monumental marble. In the Lower Silurian formation at Plattsburg and Chazy, in Clinton county, are two beautiful grey or grey and pink marbles, one of which is a favourite among domestic marbles for mantels, table tops and other interior decorations. From an extensive deposit of blue-black magnesian limestone at Glens Falls are taken the choicest varieties of black marble quarried in the United States. At Moriah and Port Henry, in Essex county, is a stone known as ophlite marble, a mixture of serpentine, dolomite and calcite interspersed with small flecks of phlogopite. Larger deposits of serpentine occur at several places in St Lawrence county; and at Warwick, in Orange county, is some beautiful marble of a carmine-red colour occasionally mottled with white or showing white veins. The marble quarried in 1908 was valued at $706,858. There are extensive formations of granitic rocks in the Adirondacks, in the lower Hudson Valley, and in the adjacent highlands, but they are not extensively quarried. Rockland county quarries considerable trap rock, used mostly for road-making and concrete, and Ulster county has for more than a century produced most of the domestic millstones used in the United States. Extending from Madison county to the W. border of the state in Erie county is a narrow belt containing large deposits of gypsum, and in 1908 the value of the state’s output ($760,759) was greater than that of any other state, although Michigan produced a larger quantity. At or near Chittenango, in Madison county, natural-cement rock was first discovered in the United States, and the first use made of it was in the construction of the Erie Canal. The rock was found in much greater quantities at Rosendale, in Ulster county, in 1823, and the amount of this cement produced by New York rose to 4,689,167 barrels in 1899; the state is still the chief producer but only 947,929 barrels were made in 1908. Limestone and clay suitable for making Portland cement are also found in Ulster county and elsewhere, and the production of this increased from 65,000 barrels in 1890 to 2,290,955 barrels in 1908. Near Talcville, in St Lawrence county, is a large deposit of fibrous talc. In 1908 the total value of the state’s talc product was $697,390, almost one-half the total for the entire country.
New York and Michigan are the two principal salt-producing states in the Union. Salt was discovered by the Jesuits in Western New York about the middle of the 17th century, and was manufactured by the Indians in the Onondaga region. The state bought the salt reservation in 1788, and soon afterward the manufacture of salt was begun by the whites. From 1880 to 1885 the first brines were obtained in Wyoming and Genesee counties by boring deep wells into beds of rock salt, and in 1885 the mining of the extensive deposits of rock salt in Livingston county was begun. Salt is also produced in Tompkins and Schuyler counties. In 1908 the total production of the state, 9,076,743 barrels valued at $2,136,738, was exceeded in quantity and (for the first time) in value by that of Michigan.
The Appalachian oil field extends northward from West Virginia and Pennsylvania into Cattaraugus, Allegany and Steuben counties. The first oil well in the state was drilled at Limestone in Cattaraugus county in 1865, and the state’s output of oil was 1,160,128 barrels, valued at $2,071,533 in 1908. At Olean it is pumped into pipes which extend as far north as Buffalo and as far east as Long Island City. The village of Fredonia, in Chautauqua county, was illuminated by natural gas as early as 1825, and gas has since been discovered in several of the western counties. The value of the flow in 1908 was $959,280.
There are more than forty mineral springs in New York whose waters are of commercial importance, and in 1908 the waters sold from them amounted to 8,007,092 gals., valued at $877,648; several of the springs, especially those in Saratoga county, attract a large number of summer visitors. Graphite is widely distributed in the Adirondack region, but the mining of it is confined for the most part to Essex and Warren counties; in 1908 the output was 1,932,000 ℔. valued at $116,100. Other mineral substances obtained in small quantities are: pyrite, in St Lawrence county; arsenical ore, in Putnam county; red, green and purple slate, in Washington county; garnet in Warren, Essex and St Lawrence counties; emery and felspar, in Westchester county; and infusorial earth in Herkimer county.
Manufactures.—The establishment of a great highway of commerce through the state from New York City to Buffalo by the construction of the Erie Canal, opened in 1825, and later by the building of railways along the line of the water route, made the state’s manufactures quite independent of its own natural resources. The factory manufacture of clothing was begun in New York City about 1835, and received a great impetus from the invention of the sewing-machine, the demands created by the Civil War, and the immigration of vast numbers of foreign labourers. It is now the leading manufacturing industry of the state. The value of the clothing was $340,715,921 in 1905. New York City ranks first among American cities in printing and publishing, the products being valued at $137,985,751 in 1905. Knitting by machinery was introduced into America in 1831 at Cohoes Falls, on the Mohawk river; the products, consisting largely of underwear, were valued at $46,108,600 in 1905. Of the other textile industries none except the manufacture of carpets and rugs and silk and silk goods has become very prominent, and yet the total value of all textile products in 1905 was $123,668,177. The refining of sugar was begun in New York City late in the 18th century, but the growth of the industry to its present magnitude has been comparatively recent; the value of the sugar and molasses refined in 1905 was $116,438,838. Foundry and machine-shop products were valued at $115,876,193 in 1905, and electrical machinery, apparatus, and supplies at $35,348,276. The manufacture of paper and wood-pulp products ($37,750,605 in 1905) is an industry for which the state still furnishes much of the raw material, and other large industries of which the same is true are the manufacture of flour and grist-mill products, dairy products, canned fruits and vegetables, wines, clay products, and salt. New York state has ranked first in the Union in the value of its manufactures since 1830, and their value rose to $2,488,345,579 in 1905. More than three-fifths of that of 1905 was represented by the manufactures of New York City alone. Buffalo, the second city in manufactures, shares largely with New York City the business of slaughtering and meat packing, the refining and smelting of copper, and the manufacture of foundry and machine-shop products, and with New York City and Rochester the manufacture of flour and grist-mill products. Rochester ranks first among the cities of the United States in the manufacture of photographic materials and apparatus and optical instruments. Niagara Falls and New York City manufacture a large part of the chemicals, and the value of the state’s output rose to $29,090,484 in 1905. Gloversville and Johnstown are noted for leather gloves and mittens.
Transportation and Commerce.—From the very beginning of the occupation of New York by Europeans, commerce was much encouraged by the natural water-courses. The Western Inland Lock Navigation Company, chartered by the state in 1792, completed three canals within about four years and thereby permitted the continuous passage from Schenectady to Lake Ontario of boats of about 17 tons. The Erie Canal was begun by the state in 1817 and opened to boats of about 75 tons burden in 1825. The Champlain Canal, connecting the Erie with Lake Champlain, was also begun in 1817 and completed in 1823. The Oswego Canal, connecting the Erie with Lake Ontario, was begun in 1825 and completed in 1828. Several other tributary canals were constructed during this period, and between 1836 and 1862 the Erie was sufficiently enlarged to accommodate boats of 240 tons burden.
The first railway in the state and the second in operation in the United States was the Mohawk & Hudson, opened from Albany to Schenectady in 1831. The railway mileage in the state increased to 1361 m. in 1850, to 3928 m. in 1870, to 7684·41 m. in 1890, and to 8422·14 m. in January 1909. The first great trunk line in the country was that of the Erie railway, opened from Piermont, on the Hudson river, to Dunkirk, on Lake Erie, in 1853. The New York Central & Hudson River railway, nearly parallel with the water route from New York City to Buffalo, was formed by the union, in 1869, of the New York Central with the Hudson River railway. The West Shore railway, which follows closely the route of the New York Central & Hudson River, was also the result of a consolidation, completed in 1881, of several shorter lines. In 1886 the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad Company leased the West Shore for a term of 475 years, and this company operates another parallel line from Syracuse to Buffalo, a line following closely the entire N. border of the state (the Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg), and several cross lines. Other important railways are the Lehigh Valley, the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, and the Pennsylvania in the central and W. sections, the Delaware & Hudson, the Rutland, and the New York Ontario & Western in the E., and the Long Island on Long Island. In competition with the railways, traffic on the existing canals suffered a marked decline. As, however, this decline was accompanied with a considerable decrease in the proportion of the country’s exports which passed through the port of New York, interest in the canals revived, and in 1903 the electorate of the state authorized the issue of bonds to the amount of $101,000,000 for the purpose of increasing the capacity of the Erie, the Champlain and the Oswego canals, to make each navigable by barges of 1000 tons burden. A project adopted by the state for the enlargement of the Erie provides for a new route up the Hudson from Troy to Waterford
