392 GEOLOGY OP OLD HAMPSHIRE COUNTY, MASS. 



employment to about 200 meu for a greater portion of the year. There is also a 

 tbird, yielding a fluer-grained, harder stone, which occurs, however, in a thinner 

 stratum and at greater depths below the soil, so that it is now used only on special 

 orders. All the stone is brownish-red in color, does not flake on exposure to the 

 weather, is free from stratification, and evenly hard throughout — that from the 

 Kibbe having a somewhat richer red hue than the others. The quarries are located 

 on nearly flat ground, and the sandstone croppings are over 10 feet tliick, with a 

 dip toward the southeast of about 10 degrees. As the line of the dip is followed 

 the stone becomes finer in texture and harder, and the stratum also thickens, untd, 

 when covered by 20 feet of soil, it forms a layer from 20 to 30 feet through Above 

 the stone is found a mass of slaty browustoue, and below it is the same material, 

 although explorations indicate the existence of another stratum of good rock at a 

 small distance below tbe first. But little powder is used in quarrying, most of the 

 work being done with picks and wedges. Blocks weighing in the rough from 5 to 

 6 tons are frequently taken out and sometimes shipped uncut, and one block of 12 

 tons weight has been successfully quarried and raised. Water causes much trouble 

 and expense, and in the Saulsbury workings a steam pump, throwing 60 gallons a 

 minute, is employed for an average of twelve hours a day to keep down the flow 

 from springs and surface drainage. The (luarry work lasts from April to Decem- 

 ber, and during the winter months a force of laborers is employed in stripping the 

 rock ;ind removing the soil and waste to old workings. About half of the stone 

 quarried is dressed before shipment. 



The firm is now using Longmeadow stone either in solid walls or as trimmings 

 on the following contracts: The Union Theological Seminary, a four-story 200 by 125 

 foot building, on Park avenue, New York, which will cost $300,000 when finished 

 in May: the St. James Episcopal Church, to cost $125,000, and cover a space of 

 120 by 72 feet on Madison avenue. New York; the Jeflerson Physical Laboratory 

 for Harvard College, a four-story building, 70 by 212 feet, with the peculiarity that 

 in portions of it no iron, even in the form of nails, will be used on account of pos 

 sible magnetic action; for the University of Vermont, at Burlington, a library 

 building of Kibbe sandstone, to cost $100,000; on Eighth street, St. Louis, Missouri, 

 an eight-story 64 by 130 foot building, to cost $225,000, for the use of the Turner 

 Real Estate and Building Association; at Lawrenceville, New Jersey, eight buildings, 

 to cost $325,000, for the Lawrenceville Academy. The Norcross Brothers quarry 

 three shades of stone, the trade names by which they are known being " Maynard," a 

 bright-red stone; " Kibbe," a dark red; and " Worcester," a brown. 



There are a number of Springfield meu interested in getting out stone for 

 buildings, and the East Longmeadow quarry of James & Marra, of this city, lies 

 near the Norcross Brothers works, and the stone obtained from it much resembles 

 the Kibbe rock in quality, although of a slightly lighter color. The quarry was 

 first worked about sixty years ago by a man named Saulsbury, but only small 

 amounts of stone were taken out until it passed into the hands of Nathaniel Billings 

 In 1882 the present owners bought the property of him, and have since added to 



