480 KEPOKT ON NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1886. 



inlaid worlv and elaborate ornaineutation, but is usually found only in 

 small slabs. A variety quite commonly seen in mineral cabinets is of 

 a dark grayish-brown color and with occasional brilliantly iridescent 

 spots and streaks like those of the tine opal. It is brought from Blei- 

 berg and Hall in the Tyrol in Austria. 



(7) ITALY. 



The quarries of the Apennines in northern Italy, near Carrara, Massa, 

 and Serravezza, furnish marbles of a great variety of colors of the finest 

 qualities and in apparently inexhaustible quantities. To give a full de- 

 scription of these quarries and their various products would be to tran- 

 scend the limits of this work. I shall therefore confine myself to a brief 

 description of only those stones which are imported to any extent into 

 this country. 



White statuary marolo. — This is a fine grained saccharoidal pure 

 white stone, without specks or tlaws. On a polished surface it has a 

 peculiar soft, almost waxy, appearance, entirely dilferent from the dead 

 whiteness of the Vermont statuary marbles, to which it is considered 

 greatly superior. It is brought principally from the Poggio Silvestro 

 and Betogli quarries, that from the first named locality being consid- 

 ered the best. The price of the stone in Italy varies from 15 to 40 lires 

 per cubic foot in blocks of sntficieut size for an ordinary statue 5 feet in 

 height. 



Ordinary white or hlocli marble. — This is usually white in color, though 

 sometimes faintly bluish and veined. It is largely imported into this 

 country, and used for monumental work. The variety from the Canal 

 Bianco quarries is white, with faint bluish lines j that from Gioja quar- 

 ries is fine-grained, and uniformly white and somewhat translucent, 

 sometimes resembling gypsum on a i)olished surface. The variety from 

 the Ravaccione quarries is faintly water-blue, while that from the Tau- 

 tiscritti quarries is of similar color, but traversed by fine, dark-bluish 

 veins. These stones sell for from 4 to 10 lires per cubic foot in blocks 

 containing 20 cubic feet each. 



The veined marbles from the Vara and Gioja quarries are of a white 

 color, but often blotched with darker hues, and traversed by a coarse 

 irregular net- work of faintly bluish lines. The Bardiglio marbles of the 

 ordinary' type from the Para and Gioja quarries are of a water-blue 

 color, blotched irregularly with white, and far inferior in point of beauty 

 to the justl3'-famed Bardiglio veined marbles from the Seravezza quar- 

 ries. These are of a light-blue color, traversed by an irregular net- work 

 of fine dark-blue lines, intersecting one another at acute angles. This 

 stone is used very extensively in soda-water fountains, counters, and for 

 j)anellings. 



The lied Mixed marble from quarries at Levante is also much sought, 

 but works with difficulty and requires mucji filling. It is properly a 

 breccia, comi)osed of irregular whitish and red fragments embedded in 



