PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



47 



quarried iu Florida, wliicli bas proved to contain ingredients that make 

 it valuable for other than building purposes. To render this informa- 

 tion available to those interested in agricultural resources, the analyses 

 that have been made upon this material are now published. 



There are very few stone quarries iu the State of Florida — in fact 

 almost the only one in actual operation is that at Hawthorne, in Alachua 

 County, which is operated by Mr. C. A. Simmons. 



When saturated with its quarry water this stone is quite soft and can 

 be cut with an axe or sawn with much facility, and bricks of any desired 

 shape can be very easily cut from it. The chimneys of the region, and 

 the walls and houses, so far as stone has been used in their construction, 

 are made from blocks that have been taken from this quarry. The ma- 

 terial rapidly hardens when exposed to the air and sun, and some struct- 

 ures that were made of it thirty years ago are said to be still in good 

 conditiou. Cubes 34 inches upon their edges have been extracted, and 

 it is stated that a cube two or three times as large might be obtained. 

 The cubic contents of the excavated space is 800 yards, but the space 

 occupied by the deposit covers a large area and the material is said 

 to be practically inexhaustible. The marl beds which are associated 

 with this rock coutain sharks' teelh and bones which mark the Tertiary 

 age of the formation. Professor Smith, who has so recently written upon 

 the geology of Florida, in the American Journal of Science, April, 1881, 

 page 292, states that this bed belongs with the Yicksburg beds which 

 cover so large a portion of the interior of Florida. 



This stone ])ossesses properties which evidently render it valuable as 

 a material of construction, especially in the southern latitudes, where 

 frost does not act as a disintegrating agent. It was examined by one 

 of the southern chemists, who stated that it consisted almost entirely of 

 silica and would be good for glass making. The examination of a thin 

 section of this stone, however, indicated that it possesses such a peculiar 

 structure, foreign to a quartz rock, that the necessity of analyses was 

 suggested. These analyses were performed by Dr. A. B. Howe, upon 

 two specimens taken from different jjortions of the quarry. The first 

 specimen gave the following results : 



