WIXNEBAGO COIXTY. 91 



unless it be the marbles or the flesh colored granites, presents a more 

 sulking, solid, home-like appearance than these same cream colored 

 limestones of the Forest City. When built up as these people know 

 how to build thvin, they are an architectural miracle of stone and mor- 

 tar. The rich, warm. soft, cream color attains its richest, warmest and 

 softest hues in the stones taken from the Kockford quarries. It bathes 

 them with a tint beautiful as Xature uses, when, with a brush of sun- 

 beams, she lays her golden yellow upon the ripe ears of .corn. And 

 not only is the material beautiful, but it is lasting, seasoning when long 

 exposed into almost the hardness of granite itself. Let wealthy build- 

 ers hereafter, instead of sending for Milwaukee brick to put into their 

 palatial residences, go to the rich outcrops of the Galena limestone, and 

 dig from thence a building material every way more durable, more 

 beautiful, and more simply grand. 



The Buff and the Blue also furnish stone of good quality for all or- 

 dinary mason work, and it is easily quarried and easily worked. The 

 dark blue strata, when handsomely dressed and laid up, either by 

 itself, or alternating with the lighter colored, presents a picturesque 

 and quaint appearance ; but the colors are not fixed and fast like that 

 of the Galena. 



Lime. The Buff limestone, of Eockton, will not burn a good quick- 

 lime, but would doubtless, if properly managed, make a fair hydraulic 

 lime. Some of the Blue limestones will make a fair quick-lime ; but 

 the Galena limestone excels all others in the quality of this useful ma- 

 terial, which can be obtained in inexhaustible quantities from its con- 

 venient quarries. The Xew York perpetual patent lime kiln in the city 

 of Eockford, before referred to, turns out thousands of bushels every 

 summer mouth of an excellent building and whitewashing lime. It is 

 a high structure, perhaps ten feet in diameter within its circular walls. 

 Perpetual fires burn away at the bottom; the sinking, glowing mass is 

 constantly replenished at the top with cart loads of stones the size of 

 a man's fist ; and daily from the lime pot below the hot, dusty, crumbly 

 stones, soon to be transformed by the hissing touch of water into white 

 floury lime, are shoveled into a convenient store house. 



Sands and Clays. Sands for all economical purposes are found almost 

 anywhere along the river banks, or may be dug from thickly strewn 

 drift deposits. Clay, to burn into a good common red brick, may be 

 had in almost any of the underlying subsoils. The subsoil clays just 

 above the soldiers' old camping grounds, a mile or two above Bockford, 

 are of excellent quality for brick making purposes. While there last 

 summer, a powerful compressing machine, called " The Little Giant." 

 we believe, operated by a steam engine, was at work pressing dry dust 

 into bricks solid enough to be handled. These, when burned, came out 



