THE GREAT BLUESTONE INDUSTRY. 



353 



quantities in a belt of country reaching from the Helderberg 

 Mountains in Albany County, in this State, diagonally across the 

 southeastern portion of the State and into Pike and Wayne Coun- 

 ties in Pennsylvania. The bluestone belt varies in width, being 

 in the shape of a scalene or elongated obtuse triangle, no two 

 sides of which are equal. In Albany County, at Reidsville and 

 Dormansville, and Greene County, composing the northern ex- 

 tremity of the belt, the territory producing good marketable stone 

 is narrow, being confined to the foothills of the eastern watershed 

 of the Catskills and the southern slope of the Helderbergs. The 

 stone quarried here is gray in color, with frequent tinges of 



QUARRY AT WEST HURLEY, N. Y. 



greenish and light-red and brown streaks, caused by the presence 

 of calcite and ferric oxides. This stone is not regarded with 

 favor by dealers, and brings a much lower price than the dark- 

 blue product quarried farther down the river. The industry is 

 also a vanishing one here, for the top matter to be removed in the 

 quarries has become so heavy as the strata dip into the hills that 

 few quarries pay to work at the present price paid for flagging 

 stone. Many of the best-paying quarries of other days have been 

 abandoned, and in consequence the ports of New Baltimore, Cox- 

 sackie, Athens, and Maiden, particularly the last, have declined 

 very much in importance since the shipments of stone have 

 fallen off. 



The bluestone belt follows the Hudson River until the town 



