SOAPSTONE — BTJSHNELL 479 



Pelasgic ruin. The stone, which was probably the same as that 

 worked by the Indians at the quarry workshop near Damon, was 

 analyzed and described in 1895. Part of the account may be quoted,^ 



The "soapstone" at the first-named locality [Alberene, Albemarle County, 

 Va.] is not a pure steatite, but rather an admixture of various alteration products, 

 among which a colorless tremolite and light-green talc are most conspicuous. 

 What the original rock may have been is not apparent from a study of thin sec- 

 tions, but the appearance in the field is such as to suggest it to have been a 

 pyroxenite. It occurs in the form of a broad dike or sheet, parallel and dipping 

 with the gneiss ( ?) in which it is inclosed, and, as displayed in the quarry opening, 

 is traversed by numerous irregular veins of coarsely crystalline calcite. The 

 rock is very massive, in general appearance eminently suggestive of an eruptive 

 pyroxenite which has undergone extensive hydration and carbonatization, whereby 

 a considerable portion of its calcium has separated out in the form of calcite. 

 As is almost invariably the case in rocks of this class, the mass is traversed by 

 numerous joint planes, some of which are pronouncedly slickensided. 



The following note was attached to the preceding and refers to 

 stone from the Alberene quarry : 



A chemical analysis of the stone, by R. L. Packard, yielded SiOj, 39.06 percent ; 

 AL03, 12.84 percent ; FeO, 12.93 percent ; CaO, 5.98 percent ; MgO, 22.76 percent ; 

 Ignition, 6.56 percent. Total 100.13. All iron calculated as FeO. 



Fairfax Cownty. One of the most interesting ancient quarries in 

 Virginia, and certainly the one most carefully examined and studied, 

 was located about 2 miles northwest of Clifton and 22 miles west of 

 "Washington. The steatite was exposed in the bed and on the banks 

 of a small branch of Bull Run and varied in thickness from 20 to 50 

 feet. 



The examination of the quarry was begun late in March 1894^ — 



and in a few weeks a most striking illustration of the enterprise and skill of 

 our aboriginal tribes was exposed to view. A trench or gallery some 25 feet 

 wide and reaching in places a depth of 16 feet had been carried into the face of 

 the hill to a distance of 60 or 70 feet, and a second pit, inferior in dimensions, 

 had been opened beyond this. Almost the entire excavation had been carved 

 out of the solid steatite by means of stone picks and chisels, and all the evidence 

 of the cutting and sculpturing — even the whitened surfaces of the tool marks — 

 were as fresh as if the work of yesterday * * ♦ . 



Much impure stone had been cut away in efforts to reach the purer masses, 

 and this was a most laborious work * * » The whole surface, with its nodes 

 and humps and depressions, covered everywhere with the markings, groovlngs, 

 and pittings of the chisel, presented a striking example of the effectiveness of 

 native methods and the persistence of native effort 



Quantities of unfinished vessels, broken during the process of shap- 

 ing, were recovered from the site ; also a great number of stone imple- 

 ments, large and small, which had been used in trimming the blocks 



* Merrill, George P., Notes on asbestos and asbestiform minerals. Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., 

 vol. 18, pp. 281-289. 1895. 



•Holmes, W. H., Stone implements of the Potomac-Chesapeake tidewater province 

 15th Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethnol., pp. 13-152, 1897. 



