266 



THE CniL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[August, 



Makdle. — To the marble quarries, however, the Americans look 

 for their principiil supply of in;iterii\ls. These are more numerous, 

 and are more widely distributed than the others I have mentioned, 

 although they also arc confined to the nortliem states. The principal 

 marble quarries are in the states of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and 

 Vermont. I visited some of them when in' the country, and had also 

 the advantage of receiving much information regarding them, as well 

 as the materials of the Tnited States generally, from Mr. Strickland, 

 architect, at PhiUulilphia, and from Mr. John Struthers, marble-cutter, 

 of the same place, to whom I am indebted for the speK-imens of mar- 

 bles and woods which! had the pleasure of laying before the Society.* 



The marble quarries in Femisylvai ia are situate in the valley of 

 the river Schuvlkill, and are from thirteen to twenty miles distant 

 from Philadelphia. They produce white, blue,black, and variegated 

 marbles. Limestone is found resting on the marble, and is blasted off 

 with gunpowder, and burned for making mortar. In some of the 

 quarries which I visited, tlie beds of marble dipped from north to 

 south at an inclination of 60= with the horizon, and they were worked 

 at considerable disadvantage. In one quarry the men were working 

 a bed of white marble 11 feet in thickness, at a depth of 120 feet be- 

 low the natural surface of the ground. The blocks, some of which 

 ■weighed 12 tons, were raised to the surface by means of a rudely- 

 constructed horse-gin, there being no road to the bottom of the quarry, 

 or rather pit, from which they are taken, by which even a man could 

 conveniently, or safely, descend or ascend, without the use of a rope 

 to prevent ids falling headlong to the bottom. In this respect the 

 American marble quarries reminded me of the celebrated sandstone 

 pits of the ancient city of Caen in Normandy, which are not only 

 remarkable as having produced the materials for the old London 

 Bridge, but as presenting a mode of working very similar to that pur- 

 sued in the coal-pits of this country ; the blocks, being excavated at 

 a great depth under the ground, are conveyed in subterranean pas- 

 sages to shafts, through which they are raised to the surface by horse 

 power, as in the American quarries. The price of the American 

 marble varies according to its quality and kind. The carriage of the 

 materials, owing to the badness of the roads, forms a very expensive 

 item in all the public works, and is, of course, regulated by the dis- 

 tance of transport; but the white marble costs about -Is. H'rf., and the 

 blue about is. per cubic foot at the quarries, and although this may 

 seem a very moderate price for marble, which in this country costs 

 from 15s. to 2/. a cubic foot, still, when used instead of stone through- 

 out the whole thickness of the wall of a dwelling-house, or the pier 

 of a bridge, it becomes, even at the lower price 1 have mentioned, a 

 costly material. 



The Massachusetts quarries, which are at a place called Slockbridge, 

 produce white and blue marbles, and the Vermont quarries, which are 

 near Lake Charaplain, ftunish black and white marbles. 



Those I have enumerated are the principal quarries in the United 

 States; but from the circumstances of their being so much confined to 

 particular localities, and the manner in which they are worked, it is 

 evident that their produce cannot be applied by any means to the 

 general wants of the country; and consequently, excepting in the case 

 of buildings on which a good deal of money is to be expended, it is 

 but little employed, the cost of the material itself, and the expense of 

 carriage, being very considerable. 



The marbles of the United States, according to the account of many 

 intelligent Americans with whom I conversed on the subject, are not 

 suited fur sculpture or very fine ornamental works, or even, indeed, 

 for the capitals of columns, which require superior workmanship ; 

 and the marble used for the capitals of all the fine buildings through- 

 out the country is imported from Carara in Italy, whence a very large 

 quantity is annually exported to America. For similar purposes 

 black marble is also imported into the States from Ireland. If, how- 

 ever, 1 might form a j\i(lgment from the quality of some of the speci- 

 mens which I procured, 1 should think that were the American quar- 

 ries efficiently worked, there could be very little necessity for apply- 

 ing either to Italy or Ireland for so great an annual supply. Those 

 buildings which arc constructed of the whitest description of American 

 marble carefully selected for the purpose, such as the Capitol and the 

 President's house at Washii gton, the Bank of the L^nited States, the 

 Mint, and other public buildings at Philadeliihia, and the monument 

 erected to the memory of Washington at Baltimore, have certainly a 

 most imposing and gorgeous appearance, owing to the fineness and 

 beauty of the material. But the buildings which are constructed of 

 the blue or nnselected marble, such, for example, as the State Capitol 

 at Albany, or the Town-House at New York, have a bloated and dingy 

 look, and the general effect produced by the marbles in these buildings 



' These spf cimens are now in the museum of the Society of Arts. 



is greatly inferior to that of some of the sandstones from Craigleith 

 and other British quarries. 



The white marble retains its purity of colour much longer in the 

 United States than it would do in this country, owing to the clearness 

 of the atmosphere and the absence of smoke, the use of anthracite 

 coal, which produces no smoke during combustion, being common in 

 most of the towns. These circumstances may also account for the 

 seemingly permanent vividness of the various colours, such as red, 

 white; brown, yellow, and green, with which, according to the taste, 

 or rather want of taste, of the occupiers; the exteriors of the brick 

 liouses in New York, and many other town* in the- United Statesj are 

 generally painted. 



Timber. — I must now make haste to speak of the materials^of car- 

 pentry, the other department regarding which I proposed to offer a 

 few remarks. 



The forests, to the British eye; are perhaps the most interesting 

 features in the United States, and to them the Americans are in- 

 debted fur the greater part of the materials of which their public 

 works are constructed. These forests are understood to have origi- 

 nally extended, with little exception, from the sea-coast to the confines 

 of the extensive prairies of the western states; but the effects of cul- 

 tivation can now be traced as far as the foot of the Alleghany Moun- 

 tains, the greater part of the land between them and the ocean having 

 been cleared and brought into cultivation. It is much to be regretted 

 that the early settlers, in clearing this country, were not directed by a 

 systematic plan of operations, so as to have left some relics of the 

 natural produce of the soil, which would have sheltered the fields and 

 enlivened the face of the country, while at the same time they might, 

 by cultivation, have been made to serve the more important object of 

 promoting thp growth of timber. Large tracts of country, however, 

 which were formerly thickly covered with the finest timber, are now 

 almost without a single shrub, every thing having fallen before the 

 woodman's axe ; and in this indiscriminate massacre there can be no 

 doubt that many millions of noble trees have been left to rot, or, what 

 is scarcely to be less regretted, have been consumed as firewood. 

 This work of general destruction is still going forward in the western 

 states, in which cultivation is gradually extending ; and the formation 

 of some laws regulating the clearing of land, and enforcing an obli- 

 gation on every settler to save a quantity of timber, which might per- 

 haps be made to bear a certain proportion to every acre of land which 

 is cleared, is a subject which I should conceive to be not unworthy of 

 the attention of the American Government, and one which is inti- 

 mately connected with the future prosperity of the country. But 

 should population and cultivation continue to increase in tlie same 

 ratio, and the clearing of land be conducted in the same indiscriminate 

 manner as hitherto, another hundred years may see the United States 

 a tnekus countrv. The same remarks apply, in some measure, to our 

 own provinces of LTpper and Lower Canada, in many parts of which 

 the clearing of the land has shorn the country of its foliage, and 

 nothing now remains but blackened and weather-beaten trunks. 



The progress of population and agriculture, however, has not as yet 

 been able entirely to change the natural appearance of the country. 

 Many large forests and much valuable timber still remain both in 

 Canada, and in the United States; the Alleghany Mountains, as well 

 as other large tracts of countrv towards the north and west, which are 

 yet uninhabited, being still covered with dense and unexplored forests. 



The timber trade of the United States and of Canada, from the 

 quantity of wood which is required for home consumption and exp .r- 

 tation, is a source of employment and emolument to a great mass of 

 the population. It is carried on to a greater or less extent on all 

 American rivers, but the Mississippi ancf the St. Lawrence are more 

 especially famous for it. The cliicf raftsmen, under whose direction 

 the timber expeditions on these rivers are conducted, are generally 

 persons of great intelligence, and often of considerable wealth. Some- 

 times these men, for the purpose of obtaining wood, purchase a piece 

 of land, which they sell after it has been cleared ; but more generally 

 they purchase only the timber from the proprietors of the land on 

 which it grows. The chief raftsman and ins detachment of workmen 

 repair to the forest about the month of November, and are occupied 

 during the whole of the winter months in felling trees, dressing them 

 into logs, and dragging them with teams of oxen ou the hardened 

 snow, with which the country is then covered, to the nearest stream. 

 They live during this period in temporary wooden huts. About the 

 middle of May, w hen the ice leaves the rivers, the logs of timber that 

 have been prepared and hauled down during winter, are launched into 

 the stream, and being formed info rafts, are floated to their desti- 

 nation. The rafts are furnished with masts and sails, and are steered 

 by means of long oars, which project in front, as well as behind them ; 

 wooden houses are built on them for the accommodation of the crews 

 and their families. I have several times, in the course of the trips 



