542 STEATITE. 



There are said to be beds of steatite or serpentine in Berkshire ; one near the west line in the south purt 

 of the town, and the other rather east of the middle of the town. There is a bed of steatite, serpentine 

 and actinolite at Wright's Mills in Kichford. 



The several beds of steatite in Westfield, Lowell, Troy and Jay, upon the east side of the Green Moun- 

 tains, are connected with two great ranges of serpentine. Beds of steatite are probably connected with 

 these ranges more or less throughout their whole extent, though they have been described only at certain 

 localities. We regret much not to have made a thorough stratigraphical examination of these magnesian 

 minerals and associated hornblende and talcose schists. About a mile east of the village of Lowell, on the 

 land of Mr. Pearl C. Bingham, is a bed of steatite. Part of the rock is filled with crystals of brown spar. 

 Much of this bed is concealed from view. This is east of the east range of serpentine. West of the west 

 range of serpentine there is another bed of steatite a dark colored and hard rock. There are one or two 

 other beds in Lowell, whose localities are unknown to us. 



Half a mile west of the Troy line, and two and a half miles north of the south line of Westfield, there is 

 a bed of steatite west of the west range of serpentine. There are many varieties of it, many of which are 

 of excellent quality. Some of this steatite is of a very beautiful green color ; some portions are cream- 

 colored, mottled with darker colors ; and some are of a light grayish-blue, very soft and free. 



In South Troy there is a steatite in two places upon the eastern range of serpentine, in connection with 

 chromic iron and magnetic iron. The same bed, continued in North Troy, is sixty or seventy feet wide. 

 It abounds in light horn-colored and grayish-blue varieties of steatite, of good quality. We suppose that 

 the normal position of steatite and serpentine here is that of a basin, and both above and below the serpen- 

 tine beds of steatite may be found. Half a mile west of North Troy hotel we examined a bed of steatite, 

 from one to eight feet wide. We saw it occasionally over a distance north and south of one-fourth of 

 a mile. 



In Jay there is steatite in two or three places. There are beds upon the west side of the serpentine 

 containing the chromic iron, and also a mile and a half southwest from the iron ore. The strata here are 

 vertical, running north and south. 



BEDS OF SERPENTINE. 



Although the number of beds of steatite in Vermont is more than double those of serpentine, yet there is 

 much more of serpentine in the State than of steatite, because the serpentine frequently occurs in mountain 

 masses. But it is more apt to be of an inferior quality than the steatite. There are scarcely any examples 

 of serpentine in any rock except the talcose schist. The nearest approach to serpentine in the gneiss is in 

 the tough hornblendic masses of Grafton and Athens, and in the southeast part of Wmdham. We have 

 seen no serpentine south of that represented in Fig. 279, in the description of Ballou's bed of steatite, in 

 Marlboro. From near Worden's bed, in Marlboro, which is near the north line of the town, for a distance 

 of three miles along the line of Dover and Newfane, we suspect that there is a nearly continuous bed of 

 serpentine. At all events, where Bock Eiver cuts through the serpentine in Dover and Newfane (see Fig. 

 95), the serpentine is nearly a mile wide. It is of unusually poor quality along the gorge, as it is entirely 

 colored brown by the decomposing constituent minerals, and is yet quite tough. It is undoubtedly from 

 the decomposition of the serpentine that the cement of the alluvial conglomerate has been derived. 



The steatite and serpentine, already described in Newfane, is the continuation of this bed. Serpentine 

 seems to form the larger part of it. But after leaving the quarry of the Vermont Marble and Soapstone 

 Company, we lose sight of the serpentine in this range until we arrive at Windham. In the southeast 

 part of the town, on the border between the talcose schist and gneiss, is a large deposit of serpentine, on 

 Asa Whiteman's land. It is seventy-five rods west of Pierce's steatite, the interspace being entirely horn- 

 blende schist. The bed is forty rods wide. It runs north and south, dipping 60 E. On the west side of 

 the bed the rock is garnetiferous mica schist, having the same position as the hornblende schist upon the 

 east side. Parts of it are of good quality. Foreign minerals are not abundant in it. 



Northwest of this bed about a mile and a half there is a bed of serpentine and steatite. East of the 



