222 WIXOOSKI MARBLE. 



will afford forty or fift}- slabs each noticeably different 

 from the rest. The arrangement of the light and dark 

 shades varies in different blocks and in the same blocks 

 sawn in different directions. Sometimes the colors ap- 

 pear more or less distinctly stratified, sometimes the light 

 masses are of definite form, sometimes they are lai-ge, 

 sometimes small, varying from tlie size of a pea to sev- 

 eral inches long and broad. Some of the beds do not ex- 

 hibit with any distinctness the brecciated structure but 

 are clouded, the different colors mixing and shading into 

 each other with no definite borders and in this way many 

 very beautiful shades are produced. 



The stone endures exposure to the weather almost as 

 well as granite, perhaps quite as well, but its color fades 

 so that it loses much of its beauty after long exposure, 

 but for indoor work it cannot be surpassed in durability. 

 It is not easily attacked by acids, is not easily, stained or 

 scratched and its richness and variety of color commend 

 it to all and I believe that it never fades when not directly 

 exposed to the action of sunshine and storm. 



The Winooski marble forms a part of a formation well 

 known to geologists as the Red Sandrock af Vermont, a 

 formation over which many battles have been waged aud 

 whose age is scarcely regarded as entirely settled even 

 now by some, though most have no doubt of its position 

 as a part of the Potsdam Group. This Red Sandrock ex- 

 tends through western Vermont from near the Canada 

 line southward to near Shoreham dipping to the east- 

 ward. It consists of some sandstone but quite as much, 

 perhaps more, of dolomite, with some slate. It is usually 

 a fine grained, compact rock not easily bi'oken and in 

 man}^ places contains species of trilobites and mollusks 

 characteristic of the Potsdam. The thickness of the Red 

 Sandrock formation is given by Sir William Logan 



