18 Geology of Massachusetts. 
last year in Bowdoin street, Boston, was fifteen cents: but six years 
before, the rough Quincy granite, for the United States’ Branch 
Bank, cost two dollars per foot. 
I have now given an account of the most extensive and important 
quarries of granite and sienite, in the eastern part of the State. Gran- 
ite is wrought more or less, however, not merely in all the towns 
through which its ranges pass, but also in other places, in their vicin- 
ity ; large blocks of it having been removed thither by diluvial ac- 
tion in former times. 
Although the granite in general, in the vicinity of the Connecticut 
river, is too coarse for architectural uses ; yet in Hampshire county 
are several beds of a superior quality. Perhaps the best is found in 
Williamsburgh, a few miles from Northampton. This rock, (some 
of which may be seen in the front of a few buildings in North- 
ampton,) very much resembles the granite found in the vicinity of 
Dedham, and yields in beauty and value to none in the State. It 
exists in abundance in Northampton, Whately and Williamsburgh ; 
but has yet been quarried only on a very limited scale. 
On the east side of the Connecticut, a very beautiful sienitic gra- 
nite exists in Belchertown ; in which the mica, when the hornblende 
is wanting, is very black. It is not surpassed in elegance by any 
rock in the State: but it has not as yet, to my knowledge, been 
quarried at all. Indeed, very little real granite is employed in the 
middle or western parts of the State. 
This sketch of the granite of Massachusetts, although brief, is sufi- 
cient to show that we have a great number of varieties, “and an exhaust- 
less quantity, of the most valuable material for durable and elegant 
architecture. Numerous varieties not mentioned above, which have 
fallen under my observation, either in ledges or loose blocks, will be 
found in the collection of specimens ; and some of these are pecul- 
iarly beautiful. Numerous other varieties have doubtless escaped 
my observation. Indeed, we may safely assert, that no part of the 
world is better furnished with this useful and indestructible rock. 
Geiss. 
This rock is commonly known under the name of granite ; and, 
indeed, it is composed of the same materials ; but in the gneiss, the 
structure of the rock is slaty, and it splits in one direction better than 
in others ; yet this slaty structure is often hardly perceptible, even in 
wrought specimens; and hence for all architectural and economical 
