THE BECKET CONGLOMERATE-GNEISS. 33 



folds, the o-eneral strike coinciding with the course of tlie raih-oad, until the 

 large quarries on the north side of the road are reached. These were worked 

 in 1887 by the Clark Hill Granite Company, Mr. J. H. Adams, of Dalton, 

 being- the principal owner. 



I am indebted to the superintendent, Mr. Hopkins, of Becket, who 

 opened some of the first quan-ies in the region, for much infonnation con- 

 cerning the working of the quarry. Besides supplying much rough stone to 

 the railroad and shipping many paving stones to Holyoke and other cities, 

 this quarry furnishes a fine, light-colored granite of medium grain, obtainable 

 in large blocks and suitable for all the iises of architecture, and a finer- 

 grained, darker stone of very even grain, which, if it can be quarried in as 

 large blocks as the bed promises from surface indications, will be verv valu- 

 able as a monumental stone and for all the finer classes of work for which 

 granite is employed where its somewhat somber shade, when polished, is 

 not objectionable. The "granite" extends far north into Clark Hill, on the 

 south slope of which these quarries extend for a long distance, parallel to 

 the raih-oad, and crosses the river to the south into Becket, where also are 

 quarries. Some small segregated veins and lenses of pegmatite cut the 

 rock at the quaiTy. 



The bedding of the granitoid gneiss of the quan-y can be clearly seen, 

 and is nearly horizontal, corresponding with the more plainlj' foliated rock 

 adjacent, along the railroad, which seems certainly to grade into the 

 quan-y rock. 



Between the next two bridges is again a great development of the same 

 granitoid gneiss, followed by a thin, flat-bedded gneiss, banded in gray and 

 reddish layers. Another band of the fine-grained granitoid gneiss separates 

 this in the western entrance of the Coles Brook cut from the heav}^, dark 

 gneisses of the Algonkian. (See section, fig. 1, p. 22.) 



DISTRIBUTION. 



The rocks of this series occupy the western part of Middlefield, which 

 is in Hampshire County, but beyond the limit of the map, and stretch 

 across Becket, which is in Berkshire County. The broad band of workable 

 granitoid gneiss seems to be continuous across the whole length of Becket, 

 and it is used extensively by the Chester Granite Company, which obtains 

 its materials from quarries in the eastern part of Becket, not far south of the 



MON XXIX 3 



