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Green Mountain State one of peculiar interest. The Western or 

 Prairie States have soils so similar in many respects throughout 

 their geographical limits, that an analysis of one part may be of 

 service in determining the chemical composititon of another, where- 

 as the minerals of Vermont are as various as its surface soils, and its 

 surface soils are so diversified as to have challenged the attention of 

 admirers of the beautiful and picturesque as wellas of scientific ob- 

 servers for many years. The extensive and inexhaustible quarries 

 of limestone and marble, serviceable both as objects of architectu- 

 ral beauty and agricultural utility ; the beds of serpentine or verd 

 antique which so extensively abound in Roxbury, Cavendish, Lud- 

 low, Lowell, Westfield, Troy and elsewhere the vast hills of 

 granite lying in the eastern part of Vermont, ranging from the 

 Provincial line of the boundary of Massachusetts, which have been 

 so advantageously quarried for building purposes and of whose 

 beauty and utility the State House at Montpelier is the most im- 

 posing exponent ; the large slate quarries which have been 

 wrought so extensivelv and contributed so much to the wealth of 

 Vermont because of their peculiar excellence and which appear to 

 be in no wise inferior to the best slates of Wales ; the iron 

 ores of various kinds which seem to be inexhaustible and extend 

 from the northern to the southern limits of the State and are 

 found principally on the western side of the Green Mountain 

 range ; the large beds of manganese lying in Bennington, Rut- 

 land and Addison Counties and to a greater or less extent in other 

 localities extending to the Province of Canada and which are of 

 such utility in the manufacture of chloride of lime, useful in 

 bleaching processes ; the beds 'of sulphuret of iron or copperas 

 ore which are situate in Strafibrd, Corinth, Shrewsbury and other 

 places and which under congressional protection have banished 

 foreign copperas from American markets ; the large beds of 

 steatite or soapstone which have been advantageously wrought 

 in Grafton, Bridgewater, Bethel, Cavendish, Moretown, Water- 

 ville, and other parts of Eastern Vermont ; the beds of porcelain 

 clay in Monkton and other localities together with fire-clay of 

 which the best fire-bricks for furnaces are made ; the beds of 

 copper, lead ore and other metals all these and others which I 

 have not mentioned, render Vermont a most interesting field of 

 enquiry for the scientific and economical Naturalist. 



