from 15 to 30 miles in width, and extending" through 

 the entire length of the State from south to north, 

 This belt embraces 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 

 chloride. 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 serpentine rock, 

 Which are capable of furnishing, in great abundance, 

 and of excellent quality, that beautiful variety of mag- 

 nesian marble, called Verd Antique. In this serpen- 

 tine, 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, slate, mica, horn- 

 blende, and talcose slates, gneiss and limestone fre- 

 quently interstratified, and of numerous protrusions, 

 and some extensive regions of granite. This granite 

 is of excellent quality for building stone, but the lime^ 

 stone of this formation is all too siliceous for the man- 

 ufacture of good quicklime.* 



* While all 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 quicklime can be made. Ill 

 the south-western part of Windsor county, and western part of 

 Windham county, there is a gray limestone, and in the north-east- 

 ern part of the State are extensive beds of shell marl, which make 

 a tolerable lime for ordinary purposes. These marl-beds were 



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