180 THE ALABAMA Ul'l'OKTUXITV 



be enumerated. Imt a few may be specifically named where 

 quarries and dressing works have been regularly opened. 



Granite. — In the Gold Region there are many occurrences 

 of good granite, but so far as I am aware, it has not been 

 quarried in any systematic way anywhere, though it has been 

 utilized along railroad lines traversing this region in build- 

 ing culverts and other rough structures. 



Sandstones. — The Coal Measures furnish all the sandstones 

 as yet used in Alabama for purposes of construction, and 

 dressed stone is furnished from Cullman, from the Jasper 

 Stone and Coal Company at Jasper, and at Tuscaloosa sand- 

 stone quarried and dress'ed on the spot has been used in the 

 construction of the three magnificent locks recently built there 

 by the United States Government. 



Limestones. — In all the \'allev Region, limestones are com- 

 mon, and from two of the formations already alluded to as 

 furnishing material for fluxes in the iron furnaces, viz : the 

 Lower Sil;irian and the Sub-carboniferous, have also yielded 

 rock for building purposes'. The best known quarries are 

 those of the Brothers Fossick in the Tennesse'e Valley, near 

 Sheffield. The Government locks at Muscle Shoals on the Ten- 

 nessee River are built of the same material. The Trenton lime- 

 stone has also been extensively iis'ed in the construction of 

 some of the locks on the Coosa River below Greensport. 



Marbles. — This name has been applied to crystalline lime- 

 stones and also to any form of limestone which takes a good 

 polish and which may be used for ornamental purposes. White 

 crystalline marble exists along the 'northwestern border of the 

 Gold Region, and at several- points, notably about Taylor's 

 yiU\ and near Sylacauga in Talladega county, it has been 

 quarried to some extent in the past. 



After many years of neglect t^iis marble has recently been 

 brought into notice and the quarries about Sylacauga have 

 been reopened on a large scale and a great and growing in- 

 dustry has been established. In its best varieties this marble 

 is of pure white color, of even fine grain, and equal to the finest 

 of the white marble imported from Italy. Some parts of it 

 are beautifully clouded and specially adapted to ornamental 

 Avork, as may be seen in many of the fine buildings now in 

 course of construction in Birmingham and elsewhere. 



