82 



blue approaching to iM/^e; others are of a dun-colour; while some 

 are gray and blue marbles, delicately mottled, veined, and shaded. 

 In tiieMendham Valley, a variegated pinkish colour is associated, 

 in a few cases, with a texture deemed sufficiently fine to admit 

 of a good polish. The icldle crystalliiie marbles of the altered 

 belts have been already spoken of. The pure ivhite and granu- 

 lar kind, seen in many places around Franklin and Sparta, and 

 further to the southwest, would afibrd, if carefully quarried and 

 polished, a superior marble ; while the clouded kind, such as we 

 find near Long Pond, might be procured in very beautiful varie- 

 ties. The presence of the pale-yellow Brucite, in some very white 

 portions of the granular rock, would constitute a beauty rather 

 than a defect. Other portions of this altered rock are in some 

 places delicately arborescent. 



A variegated greenish marble, susceptible of an excellent polish, 

 occurs, connected with small injected veins of serpejitine, near 

 Augusta, adjacent to the anticlinal axis of the Paulinskill Valley. 

 It has all the characters of an ornamental marble, the rock 

 being penetrated in all directions by little veins of serpentine of a 

 lighter and darker green, mingling with the mass of the rock so 

 as to impart to it numerous beautiful shades. The occurrence of 

 minute brightly yellow cubical crystals of sulphuret of iron in 

 some parts of the mass, is calculated to heighten rather than 

 impair its beauty. A change seems to have been induced in the 

 texture of the rock by the intrusion of the serpentine, nearly 

 effacing its original marks of stratification, and causing nu- 

 merous irregular cross joints. 



This creates some little difficulty in quarrying it, but if the 

 excavation were attempted on a larger scale for the purpose of 

 finding for this marble a regular market, the rock could be pro- 

 cured in larger and better shaped pieces than at present. It does 

 not show more liability to irregularities in the quarrying, than 

 such rocks usually exhibit. 



Character of the Lime for Mortar and as a Fertilizing Agent. — 

 The lime from different portions of Formation II. possesses va- 

 rious degrees of excellence for mortar. 



Two principal species include nearly all the varieties of this 

 rock, however they may differ in point of colour and aspect. The 

 first of these is composed chiefly of carbonate of lime, the extra- 



