eral species on Manhattan Island is about ninety, and in many cases the specimens have proved of surprising beauty.
L.
D. Gale, I. Cozzens, B. B. Chamberlin, D. S. Martin, S. C. H. Bailey,
Dr. Feuchtwanger, J. W. Deems, W. E. Hidden, F. Braun, J. F. Kemp,
Geo. F. Kunz, Wm. Niven, Ernest Schernikow, Gilman Stanton, Dr.
Levison, and F. A. Camp form a chain of investigators that reach to the
present day, and their accumulated results represent the mineralogical
history of a region now permanently assigned to an occupancy that
almqst forbids much extension of their work. It is necessary to
enumerate all the minerals of Manhattan Island in this article, and I
will thus introduce to the public school teachers many which are
intrinsically important* and which they may, in their industrious
explorations over the island, meet, while the more uncommon may
stimulate their curiosity.
Minerals
were collected on Manhattan Island first at Cor-lear's Hook, where a
widely extended and deep deposit of drift yielded a limited range of
minerals in the transported boulders brought from the north and west.
The serpentine region on 10th and nth Avenues, the gneiss quarries at
Kip's and Turtle Bay on the East River, from 38th to 44th Streets, a
region near 26. Avenue, between 45th and 46th Streets, blocks
bounded by 6th and 7th Avenues, from 54th Street to Central Park, are
instanced by Chamberlin as important localities, now, of course,
obliterated by buildings. The 4th Avenue improvement (1871-1875), and
the work done in adjoining neighborhoods, brought to light a number of
minerals, many, as the tourmalines, of especial beauty; at 65th Street
and the Boulevard an unusual display of garnets was discovered by Mr.
Gilman Stanton, while at Washington Heights
*An exhaustive catalogue of the minerals of the island up to the date of its
publication was prepared by Mr. B. B. Chamberlin (Trans. New York
Academy of Sciences, Vol. vii) ; and his cabinet, together with Mr.
Kunz's and the collections of the New York Mineralogical Club, is on
exhibition in the Hall of Mineralogy of the American Museum of Natural History.