468 



FARMERS' REGISTER— GRANITE AND LIMESTONE. 



sed for roads, railways and canals, and to report 

 a general scheme for public works, to be recom- 

 mended to the legislature. Many such plans have 

 been already referred to the committee, and many 

 others are warmly advocated out of doors. As is 

 usual, each one thinks the plan which will bring a 

 railway or a canal nearest to his own town, if not 

 to his own fiirm, promises most prorit, and is most 

 deserving of state patronage. 



Nov. 21th. — The general committee still are in 

 session, and not ready to report. The convention, 

 after some discussion on incidental matters, ad- 

 journed. 



Railway to convey Granite. Limestone near Ra- 

 leigh. 



The state house of North Carolina, which (to- 

 gether with a large portion of the town,) was de- 

 stroyed by fire, is now in the course of being re- 

 built, with the beauliful and excellent granite fur- 

 nished by the neighboring quarries. This stone 

 is as hard as is at all desirable, and will form so 

 large a portion of the whole structure, that it may 

 well be considered as imperishable. A railway of 

 1^ miles, Avas made from the quarry to the state 

 house square, solely to bring the stone, and has 

 yielded profitable dividends to tlie proprietors, and 

 at the same time enaVjled the transportation of the 

 stone to be effected at one third of the expense (as 

 I heard,) that it would otherwise have cost. This 

 facility, also, induces a much larger use of granite 

 for the new houses which are erecting on Fayette 

 street, and will ultimately cause the town of Ra- 

 leigh to show more beauty than many others of 

 thrice its wealth and population. 



This little rail road has doubtless had much ef- 

 fect in promoting the present zeal for similar and 

 more extensive works. We are much more ready 

 to be impressed by what we see, than what we on- 

 ly hear, even if we hear truths demonstrated, and 

 made undeniable ; and very many, who have come 

 to the seat of government from every quarter of 

 the state, have been first convinced of the advanta- 

 ges of railways by seeing the enormous masses of 

 stone conveyed as fast and as easily as the empty 

 car could be drawn on good common roads. Of 

 the 2200 yards of the whole road, 1304 required 

 either excavation or embankment, the greatest 

 depth being apparently four feet, and the greatest 

 height eight, judging by my eye. The length ol 

 the places excavated and embanked, was counted 

 by the sills. The total cost of the railway, 2200 

 yards, including every material, and every source 

 of expense, amounted to only -92,700, or S2,160 

 the mile. It is true that the sills are not of as 

 large, nor of as good timber, as a work intended 

 for permanent use would have required, and that 

 the iron strips are not more than one-sixth of an 

 inch in thickness. But if the timber and the iron 

 had been such as was used on the Petersburg and 

 Roanoke railway, it would scarcely have made this 

 cost S3,000 the mile ; and yet this work, from the 

 far greater unevenness of surface, must be more 

 costly for its extent, than would be a railway from 

 Roanoke, by Fayetteville, to South Carolina, ex- 

 clusive of the viaducts over rivers. 



\ was surprised to hear that limestone had been 

 found within fifteen miles of Raleigh, as I had not 

 supposed that it so nearly approached the granite 

 ridge. Mr. Prummond, the architect and super- 

 intendent of the building of the state house, gave 



me some specimens of the stone, and supplied me 

 with the information concerning it. A parcel of 

 the stone was quarried and burnt, and the mortar 

 made from it is now in the state house yard, and is 

 intended to be used in the building, though none 

 has yet been tried. The upper part of the body of 

 stone hatl only been used, and the lime was much 

 mixed with other earths, in detached lumps; but 

 Mr. Drummond thinks that the lime will make good 

 cement, and that deeper quarrying would have 

 furnished a material sufficiently pure. Notwith- 

 standing these promising indications of success and 

 profit from this discovery, no farther effort has 

 been made to bring this lime into use. The quar- 

 ry is abandoned, and its existence seemed to be 

 known to very few of those who had no immediate 

 concern with it. The neglect of this lime, in a 

 region otiierwise destitute of any such material, 

 and which would be so valuable for manure, as 

 well as for cement, is made the more remarkable 

 by the following facts. All the lime required for 

 building the state house, (except the small parcel 

 spoken of from this quarry,) has been brought 

 from Maine, and other places to the north, by way 

 of Wilmington and Fayetteville, and has cost at 

 Raleigh, on an average, .^l the cask : five or six 

 hundred casks have been already used, and 2,500 

 or 3,000 more will be required, to complete the 

 building of the state house — or an expense of at 

 least .* 12,000 in lime alone. Surely " internal im- 

 provement" is wanting here. It would he cheap- 

 er lor the state to pay a third of this sum (if so 

 much would be necessary) to some person capable 

 of ascertaining the quality of the limestone in the 

 neighl)orhood, and of constructing proper kilns for 

 reducing it to lime. The limestone which has been 

 so imperfectly tried, is on the land of Wm. Boy- 

 Ian, Esq. ; and at another place, in the same neigh- 

 borhood, Mr. Drummond supposed the stone to be 

 still more accessible, and more profitable to quar- 

 ry. If a few grains of go/d had been discovered 

 on either of these tracts, 1 have no doubt a thorough 

 examination would have been commenced, and the 

 value of the discovery ascertained : yet, if this body 

 of limestone is indeed abundant, and is not lessen- 

 ed in value by some rare cause of injury, it might 

 be made of more value to the commonwealth than 

 all tiie gold mines which are now worked within 

 its limits. 



My remarks on this subject are dictated by an 

 earnest desire that an article of so nmch value 

 should be brought into full use — first lor cement, 

 and afterwards (for this would certainly follow,) 

 for manure. I cannot understand why lime may 

 not be burnt and applied to soil, ascheaply in North 

 Carolina and V irginia, as in Pennsylvania — and 

 there is every reason to believe that such lands as 

 surround Raleigh, would be even more benefitted 

 by that manure, than the soils of Lancaster and 

 Chester counties in Pennsylvania. If my object 

 in finding fault was merely the pleasure of doing 

 so, there was no neetl of going so far from home, as 

 will be evident from the following statement. A 

 few years ago, I learned from a very intelligent 

 and wealthy farmer, on James river, who lived not 

 many miles below the (undoubtedly pure) lime- 

 stone which runs east of our mountains, that the 

 lime required for erecting his extensive buildings, 

 was brou gilt from New-England; and that even 

 the gentleman through whose estate the limestone 

 passed, and wluo is one of the most zealous and dis- 



