BUILDING AND ORNAMENTAL STONES. 525 



mental work. Vermont is at present the chief marble - producing 

 State of the Union, excelling in this industry all the other States com- 

 bined, having an invested capital of $3,886,000, and producing annu- 

 ally $1,340,050 worth of material. Of this the larger part is ordinary 

 white, veined, or blue marble from Sutherland Falls, Rutland, East 

 Dorset, and Pittsford. Dark gray, almost black fossiliferous marbles 

 are, however, quarried at Isle La Motte, while red, mottled, and varie- 

 gated varieties, used for tilings and wainscotings, are found at Mal- 

 lett's Bay, in the northern part of Lake Champlain. The only statuary 

 marble at present quarried in this country is found at West Rutland 

 and Pittsford, in this State. The rock is of fine and even texture, and 

 without specks or flaws, but differs from its Italian prototype in being 

 of a dead-white color, lacking entirely the peculiar waxy luster so 

 characteristic of the Italian marble. White and bluish marbles are 

 also quarried at Lee, Massachusetts ; Sing Sing, Tuckahoe, and Pleas- 

 antville, New York ; in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania ; and in 

 Texas and Cockeysville, Maryland. 



The Montgomery County quarries were first opened upward of one 

 hundred years ago, and until as late as 1840 the stone continued to be 

 the general favorite in Philadelphia for all manner of building, although 

 not well suited for the finer grades of ornamental work. Girard Col- 

 lege, the United States Custom-House, Mint, and Naval Asylum, are 

 of this stone, while the seemingly endless rows of red-brick houses, 

 with white-marble sills and caps, have come to be as characteristic of 

 Philadelphia as are the brown-stone fronts of New York. 



The colored marbles now in the market are brought principally 

 from Tennessee. The ordinary red and white variegated varieties, so 

 commonly seen in table-tops, mantels, soda-fountains, and panelings, 

 are from Rogersville and Knoxville in this State. A fine grade of 

 pink marble is also found at Cleaveland and Knoxville, while a fossil- 

 bearing olive-green variety is brought from Calhoun. A peculiar 

 brecciated stone, which I have not yet seen in the market, is also found 

 here. It consists of yellowish, rounded, and angular fragments of 

 varying sizes, imbedded in a fine, grayish ground-mass. So far as I 

 have yet observed, this stone is entirely distinct from any produced 

 elsewhere. Two fine varieties of gray fossiliferous marbles are pro- 

 duced at Chazy and Plattsburg, in Clinton County, New York, and 

 are known commercially as " Lepanto " and " French gray." The first- 

 named is gray with pink spots, while the last-named is more uniformly 

 gray in color. With the exception of the Tennessee marbles, the 

 Plattsburg stone is more extensively used for furniture and inside 

 decorative work than any other now in the market. The only first- 

 quality black marble now produced in this country is also from New 

 York State quarries at Glens Falls, furnishing a fine grade of this 

 material. 



Other than in the States above mentioned no marbles of conse- 



