STEATITE. 539 



Proctorsville, and the fourth to Rev. Joseph Freeman of Proctorsville. The latter bed is situated a short 

 distance behind Mr. Freeman's house, in Proctorsville. Its strike is N. 30 E. and it dips 70. The bed is 

 four or five rods wide, and is quite irregular in its shape. It appears upon the steep south side of a high 

 hill ; and as the strata are so nearly perpendicular a large part of the bed is exposed to view. The upper 

 part of portions of the steatite passes insensibly into serpentine. There is much brown spar in a large part 

 of this steatite, which injures the stone on account of its decomposition. Peroxyd of iron is developed by 

 this decomposition, which gives a reddish hue to the stone where it has been weathered. The east bed of 

 steatite belonging to Mr. Brown lies on the west side of the immense bed of serpentine. It was traced for 

 a quarter of a mile in a ravine. Sometimes it was seen to be eight or ten rods in thickness. Some of the 

 stone is quite hard, and seems to be intermediate in character between steatite and serpentine. This bed 

 runs a few degrees east of north, and the inclosing talco-micaceous schist is nearly perpendicular. Brown's 

 middle bed was said to be as good as the others, but was not visited. The west bed of Brown's lies on a 

 precipice on the west side of a ledge of serpentine, and is more or less mixed with serpentine. It is four 

 or five rods in width in many places. Some of it is green or chloritic, and is filled with large crystals of 

 magnetic iron ore. 



There is an excellent bed of steatite in gneiss in Baltimore, which is worked by the Vermont Marble and 

 Soapstone Company. The strike of the inclosing gneiss varies from north and south to N. 30 W. There 

 is much alluvium adjacent, so that the whole bed was not exposed at the time of examination, but so far as 

 uncovered the steatite was about seventy-five feet long and forty-two feet wide. 



There is a small bed of steatite of inferior quality in gneiss, in the east part of Reading. 



In Plymouth there are two beds of steatite. One is in the southeast part of the town half a mile west of 

 the meeting house, upon the society lot, just upon the edge of some woods. Its walls are talcose schist 

 running nearly north and south and dipping west from sixty to seventy degrees. The rock is rather coarse, 

 and contains brown spar in small crystals. 



Upon Plate XVIII. is represented a large bed of steatite and serpentine combined, which divides at 

 its southern end into two prongs. Mr. Hager will give the details of the distribution of the two racks upon 

 this general deposit in his Report. We know, however, of four localities where steatite is found, all having 

 the strike of N. 20 E., and an easterly inclination of near fifty degrees. A limited amount of very pure 

 steatite is found on Mr. Pelton's land. On A. Bates' land, sixty rods distant, there is another outcrop of 

 the same bed. On Bates' land, forty-five rods west, there is another bed of impure steatite, twenty-five 

 feet wide. On J. Marsh's land there is another bed, of excellent quality, which is well situated for eco- 

 nomical purposes. 



There are two beds of steatite in Bridgewater. They are about two miles apart, and are upon the west 

 bank of the north branch of the Otta Quechee River. The southern bed is of little con- Fio 



sequence. The other contains valuable steatite, and is upon the farm of George Bugbee, 

 one mile north of the center of the town. The steatite is fifteen rods wide, and passes 

 under the hill northwest of it. The inclosing rock, on the south side, is talcose 

 schist, but upon the northwest side it is tough hornblende rock, which rings like iron when 

 struck by a hammer. Most of the stone is entirely free from any foreign mineral. 



There are two beds of steatite in Thetford upon the east range of talcose schist. 

 One of them is upon Jeduthan Taylor's land, running east and west, and dipping 42 N. 

 The stone is impure. Fifty rods west of this, there is another mass of impure steatite. 

 Prof. Adams has the following, respecting one of these beds in his Second Annual Report. 

 Near the middle of the east side of this town, in micaceous hornblende slate, is an irregu. 

 lar bed of soapstone, about eight feet thick, which has been quarried. In the lower 

 part of the bed it passes into a dark-green laminated talc, and in the upper part contains 

 bitter spar and light-blue actinolite. 



There are two beds of steatite in Bethel. One of them is in the village, upon the east steatite, Bethel 

 side of White River, and is represented in Fig. 287. Its length is twenty-four rods. 

 The north part is coarse steatite, and there is a green steatite in the south part of the bed. The old 



