Lake Champlain Iron Region. [Volume: 8, Issue: 4, 1889, pp. 218-227]

No. 4.]

CHARCOAL IRON WORKERS.

221

charcoal fires supplied with hot blast. The resulting loupe was
hammered nto a large bloom, which was returned to the fire and
cut into smaller blooms. These are now used to manufacture horseshoe nails, and enter largely into the manufacture of high-grade
steel plate in open-hearth furnaces.
Although the Adirondack region is still an important centre of
charcoal iron production, the extent and diversity of this industry
is much restricted, and the district now is better known on account
of the supply of excellent magnetic iron-ores which are obtained
and shipped to prominent iron and steel works.
In addition to the two active charcoal blast-furnaces above mentioned, there are five anthracite furnaces on the west shore of Lake
Champlain; two of these are at Crown Point, and three at Port
Henry. The machinery equipments of several of these furnaces
rank among the largest and most expensive in the country; and the
introduction of fire-brick stoves in connection with American blastfurnace practice was first made in the Lake Champlain district, the
Cedar Point furnace at Port Henry erecting the first Whitwell
stoves, and the Crown Point furnace the first Cowper stoves.
IRON-ORES.
The most important iron-ore region in New York State is "the
Lake Champlain district," embracing three general groups of mines
located as follows:
1. At Hammondville, 13 miles west from, and 1300 feet above,
Lake Champlain, at Crown' Point, where the veins have an apparent
strike of 2 miles in length.
2. At Mineville, 7 miles west from, and 1200 feet above, Lake
Champlain, at Port Henry, where the veins have an apparent strike
of over 3 miles in length. The Port Henry mines are 12 miles north
of the Crown Point mines. Both of these deposits may be considered as in the foot-hills of the Adirondack Mountains.
3. At Lyon Mountain, 30 miles west from, and 1900.feet above,
Lake Champlain, at Plattsburgh, where the apparent strike of the
veins is 9 miles in length. This depositis known as the Chateaugay mines. It is in the Adirondack Mountains, 60 miles north of
the Port Henry mines, and is not considered as being identical in
formation with the other mines.