BUILJ)ING AND ORNAMENTAL STONES. 385 



of the Cbilliowee Mouutain, occur breccia marbles of exceptional beauty, 

 of i)ink and olive-green colors. One quite unique stone from this local- 

 ity is composed of a grayish-ground mass, with large rounded and angu- 

 lar fragments of a lemon-yellow color. These same marbles also occur 

 in Greene, Cocke, Sevier, and all the counties of the Unaka range, but 

 they are not much worked, on account of the hardness of the included 

 fraguients.* 



IJove-colored marbles are stated by the same authority to occur a few 

 miles south of Manchester, Coffee County, and in Wilson and Davidson 

 Counties. Dark limestones, almost black when polished, and often 

 traversed by veins of calcite, forming a good black marble, are not un- 

 common, occurring in the vicinity of Jonesborough, Washington County, 

 Greeneville and Newport, Cocke County, on tlie Pigeons, in Sevier 

 County, and also in McMinu and Polk Counties. They are at present 

 but little used. 



Colored marbk's are also said to occurt in the Western Tennessee 

 Valley, which, though somewhat inferior in point of beauty to those of 

 the East Valley, are still valuable stones. Perry, Decatur, Wayne, and 

 J iardin Counties are mentioned as offering the best facilities. On Shoal 

 Creek, in Lawrence County, are said to be beds of fawn-colored or 

 l)ro\vnish-red marbles, some 40 feet in thickness and extending on both 

 sides of the creek for a distance of 15 miles. The stone is often varie- 

 gated by Heecy clouds of green or red green and white colors. Owing 

 to lack of transportation facilities it is not now in the market. In Wil- 

 son and Davidson Counties other beds of bluish or dove-colored marble 

 occur, and in liutherford County is a bed of pale-yellow marble with 

 .serpentine veins of red and black dots. The extent of the deposit is 

 not known, and at present the stone is seen only in the forui of small 

 objects for paper-weights and curiosities. 



TcniH. — The resources of this State are as yet but little known. 

 There have been received at the ISJational Museum several samples of 

 compact, light-colored cretaceous limestones, from the vicinity ot Austin, 

 Travis County, though few of them are of such ({uality as to be used 

 as marbles. There was on exhibition at the I'few Orleans Exposition 

 in 1884-85 a marble hre-place and mantel of Austin marble that was 

 worthy of more 1 haii passing notice. The stone was coiii[)act, very light 

 drab in color, and interspeivsed with large fossil sln-lls and transparent 

 calcite crystal. This comi)osition would reud(;r some care necessary in 

 cutting, but the final result would seem to justify the outlay. The uiarbk's 

 received from P.urnet and vicinity present a. variety of colors, some ot 

 which are very pleasing. They range from blue-gray and distinctly crys- 

 talline to very fine and compact forms, designated as " mahogany-red," 

 " red and white,"" purple variegated," etc. The " mahogany-red" is dull 

 in color, and tiaversed by a net-work of lighter lines. It is too hard and 

 brittle to work econoniically. The niost promising variety is the purple 



* Geoloj^y oCTc,iiiK!8.seL', p. 2il. t Miu. Koaourccs of Tcuucsacc. 



D, Mis. 170, pt. 2 L'5 



