BUILDING AND ORNAMENTAL STONES. 531 



many counterfeits, however, the work is too perfect in execution, and 

 need deceive none but the most inexperienced. 



Concerning the future of the building stone industry little that is 

 definite can be said. As the population increases and becomes more 

 fixed in its abode, there naturally arises a demand for a more durable 

 building material than wood, which is still largely used in the country 

 towns and smaller cities. As wealth accumulates, too, better and more 

 substantial buildings are erected, which are often profusely embellished 

 with the finer grades of ornamental stones. The demand, then, is sure 

 to increase. In regard to the amount of the supply there can be ques- 

 tion ; everything would seem to depend on the quality, variety, and 

 cost of working of yet-to-be-discovered material. Are we to continue 

 to import as now the finer grades of our ornamental stones, or will 

 our own quarries, yet perhaps to be opened, produce enough and more 

 than enough for our own use ? I am inclined to think the latter. 



In many of the Eastern and earliest to be settled States very little 

 is yet known regarding their final resources. In Maine, for instance, 

 fully one half of the State is as yet an unknown land. Its present 

 quarries are nearly all immediately upon the coast. What are the 

 resources of its immense interior can not with certainty be foretold. 

 In the Southern and Western States and Territories, this condition 

 of affairs is naturally greatly magnified. The Virginias, North and 

 South Carolina, and Georgia, all contain excellent material, none of 

 which is now in our principal markets. Michigan can furnish brown 

 sandstones in great abundance fully equal to any now quarried in the 

 more Eastern States, and other sandstones of a beautiful mellow tint 

 are known to occur in Western Arizona. The Rocky Mountain region 

 contains an abundance, both in variety and quantity, of granites, sand- 

 stones, marbles, and the more recent volcanic rocks, as basalts, rhyo- 

 lites, and trachytes. Some of these are very beautiful, excelling any- 

 thing in this respect from the Eastern States. Red granites far ex- 

 celling the red Scottish granites of Peterhead, or the celebrated Egyp- 

 tian " Syenite," occur in inexhaustible quantities. We have seen a 

 black-and-white breccia marble from Pitkin, Colorado, which bids fair 

 to be a formidable rival of the imported Portoro marble from the 

 Monte d'Arma quarries, if it occurs in sufficient quantities and is 

 accessible. A fine field for exploration is offered in the extensive 

 stalagmitic deposits on the floors of the numerous caverns so prevalent 

 in many parts of the country. These deposits, as is well known, are 

 identical in composition with the celebrated "onyx" marbles of Cali- 

 fornia, Mexico, and Egypt, already mentioned. The red and purple 

 porphyries so abundant in New Hampshire, Eastern Massachusetts, 

 and other parts of the country, offer an unfailing supply of beautiful 

 and durable ornamental stones, but which are at present kept out of 

 the market, owing to the great cost of working. 



This leads us, in conclusion, to an important item in this connection 



