66 



rocks. These last consist principally of slates, limestone,* and 

 quartz rock. A few fossils are believed to have been found in 

 them, but they are extremely rare and obscure ; and the question 

 with regard to these rocks is, as I understand it, whether they are 

 a series of fossiliferous rocks which are older than the Champlain 

 group, or are metamorphic members of that group, whose fossils 

 have been mostly obliterated by heat. 



To the eastward of the Champlain and Taconic group, I am not 

 aware that any fossiliferous rocks have been found, in place, with- 

 in the State. Ikying next to these, is a belt of talcose slate forma- 

 tion, varying from 15 to 30 miles in width, and extending through 

 the entire length of the State from south to north. This belt em- 

 braces all the highest summits of the Green Mountain range. The 

 rocks, though generally more or less talcose, contain in many 

 places, a large proportion of mica, and in some places are highly 

 chloritic. Near the eastern margin of this belt there is a narrow 

 range of steatite, extending through the State, having associated 

 with it or embraced within it, in many places, extensive beds of ser- 

 pentine rock, w r hich are capable of furnishing, in great abundance 

 and of excellent quality, that beautiful variety of magnesian marble, 

 called Verd Antique. In this serpentine, in the north part of the 

 State, large veins of the magnetic oxyde, and also of the chromic 

 iron, have been opened. The whole belt which I have mentioned, 

 is entirely destitute, certainly in the north half of the State, both 

 of limestone and granite. 



Between this belt of talcose rocks and Connecticut river, the 

 formation consists of clay, mica, hornblende, and talcose slates, 

 gneiss and limestone frequently interstratified, and of numerous 

 protrusions, and some extensive regions of granite. This granite 

 is of excellent quality for building-stone, but the limestone of this 

 formation is all too silicious for the manufacture of good quick- 

 lime.f 



* The limestone of this series furnishes inexhaustible quarries of the most beautiful 

 white marble. 



fWhileall the western parts of Vermont abound in the best of limestone, there is in 

 the eastern and north-eastern parts of the State no limestone from which good quick- 

 lime can be made. In the south-vestern part of Windsor connty, and western part of 

 Windham county, there is a gray limestone, and in the north-eastern part of the State 

 are extensive beds of shell marl, which make a tolerable lime for ordinary purposes. 

 The marl-beds were originally formed in the bottoms of ponds ; but these ponds have, in 



