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General view of Armstrong's soft-mud brickyard at Morristown, N. Y., with a deposit of glacial clay in the adjoining lowland.

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MORRIS COUNTY.

Extensive areas in the southeastern part of Morris county are underlain by clay, some of which attains a great thickness, but for the most part they are low and swampy, often several miles from railroads, and somewhat buried by sand or swamp muck. Hence they are mostly undeveloped. In the northern and western parts of the county no extensive deposits are known, although some local beds of surface or flood-plain clays probably occur.

Morristown.-A brick works is in operation 14 miles from Morristown, on the Bernardsville road (Loc. 293, Pl. LI, Figs. I and 2), and is using a deposit of glacial clay lying in the valley at that point. The clay underlies an area of 8 to 10 acres. It is a finely laminated sandy material with a layer of many concretions, about 6 feet below the top of the bank. These cause the brick to split, if allowed to remain in the clay. The clay in the bottom of the bank is much more plastic than in the upper part. The material is used for making a soft-mud brick of good quality, tests of which are given in the table, p. 256.

Whippany.-North of Morristown, at Whippany (Loc. 294), is another brick works, which has been running intermittently and utilizes a deposit of very plastic glacial-lake clay. The material underlies an area of about 35 acres, and has been dug to a depth of 12 feet. It is finely laminated, and gets very tough towards the bottom, so that a disintegrator is required to break it up. The material burns to an excellent red color of great density, but has a high shrinkage, and would probably melt at a rather low cone. The works are shown on Plate LII,

P. 480.

Schooleys Mountain.—At Schooleys Mountain (Loc. 284), in the same county, a deposit of surface clay, derived by wash from disintegrated gneiss, occurs on the property of J. A. Parker. This material is fairly plastic, and works up with 35.4 per cent. water to a mass having an air shrinkage of 8 per cent. It burns steel-hard at cone 05 with a fire shrinkage of 4 per cent., absorption 10.9 per cent. and a light-red color. The deposit is not at present worked.

Parsippany.-Brick clay also occurs at Parsippany (Loc, 297, Lab. No. 730), on the property of J. B. Ricketts. It is probably a glacial-lake clay, and at cone I burns to a light-pink brick, which is not steel-hard. It has a fire shrinkage of 0.3 per cent. and an absorption of 18.29 per cent. For common brick it would have to be burned somewhat harder than is usually necessary, but the low fire shrinkage is a desirable point.

In addition to the above localities, from which samples of the clay were tested, large deposits are known to occur elsewhere along the upper Passaic river. These underlie the region formerly covered by the glacial Lake Passaic. Since their distribution has been given somewhat in detail in Chapter VI, p. 128, they will be passed with this brief reference. Many of these lacustrine clays are calcareous, and contain an abundance of concretions in certain layers.

Mount Paul.-A sample of light-colored clay, not very sandy, was received by the Survey from N. B. Thompson, Mendham, from his farm near Mount Paul. It was received too late to be examined physically, and so nothing is known of its qualities.

Clay-working industry.-As already indicated, common brick are made at Logansville, Morristown and Whippany, and were formerly manufactured at Summit, Chatham, Morris Plains and Chester. Flowerpots and draintile are manufactured at Logansville, but not extensively.

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Inclined plane leading from the clay pit up to the brick works, with cars of clay. Whippany, Morris county.

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General view of the brick works at Whippany, with the clay deposit under

lying the field in the foreground.

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