536 



STEATITE. 



Brattleboro. The top of the hill is entirely composed of the magnesian rocks. The length of the bed is half 

 a mile. The including rock is talco-niicaceous schist, and is quite irregular in its position, but averages 

 N. 15 E., in direction, and dip 75 E., though varying to perpendicular. The rock is less micaceous upon 

 the east than upon the west side of the bed. 



The width of the bed at its north part is not less than twelve rods. It is narrower at the south end. 

 The steatite and serpentine are strangely mixed together. Sometimes the serpentine entirely cuts off the 

 steatite, and again the steatite nearly cuts off the serpentine. At the north end of the bed, the serpen- 

 tine occupies the greater part of the bed, being inclosed on both sides by steatite. The general course of 

 the bed is like an irregular vein of granite in limestone. We regret that, by an oversight, the figure drawn 

 of this bed by the Principal of the Survey, for the Vermont Marble and Soapstone Company, several years 

 since, was not copied into this Beport. The quality of the steatite was described as unusually good. It is 

 unusually free from foreign minerals, such as brown spar. There is also present an unusual quantity of the 

 deep-green variety of steatite, which by many is regarded as the most valuable and beautiful of all. It appears 

 here in the form of veins, from a few inches up to more than two feet wide. In one spot there is an appa- 

 rent vein some eight or ten inches thick, of most excellent quality, running through serpentine. The minerals 

 at this locality, are green talc, hornblende, actinolite, Adamsite, chlorite, garnet, and chromic iron. 



We were informed of the existence of a bed of steatite in the southwest part of Townshend, but have 

 not visited it. We examined a tubercular mass of steatite of small size, in the east part of Townshend, 

 upon the land of David Bemis. Several excellent blocks have been quarried from this bed. It has been 

 excavated to a depth of fifteen feet. The widest part of the bed is thirty feet. There seemed to be no 

 irregularities in the form of this bed, and we saw no rock present except steatite. It occurs in gneiss, 

 running N. 40 E., and dips 50 N.W. It is probably the same bed aa that in Grafton, either upon the 

 opposite side of an axis, or the same stratum prolonged into Townshend through Athens. We think it an 

 interesting fact that upon the line of strike connecting the steatite beds in Grafton and Townshend, there 

 occurs in Athens a bed of dolomite, having associated with it, hornblende, epidote and chlorite, minerals 

 which more commonly are associated with steatite. It would seem as if for some reason this bed of 

 dolomite was not converted into steatite, like its neighbors and congeneric beds in Grafton and Townshend . 



Fia. 281. 



Steatite in Grafton and Athens. 



The two beds of steatite, one in Grafton and the other in Athens, only sixty rods apart, have been known 

 for a long time, having been one of the first steatite quarries opened in the State. Their relative position 

 is given in Fig. 281. Goodrich's quarry is situated in Athens, and Smith's quarry, the most northern, is 



