On the Secondary and Tertiary Formations. 341 



bushels, but every mason of whom I have made inquiries, and 

 who has measured them, says their capacity is continually 

 changing ; that most of them contain less than a common flour 

 barrel, and that three bushels and a half is probably near the 

 average measure of their contents. Their large size is made up 

 by enormously thick staves, and heads about an inch thick, and 

 frequently large empty spaces remain in the cask. Yet for this 

 meagre amount of lime, the people of South Carolina are will- 

 ing to pay a sum for which they themselves might make full 

 eight times as much; and by thus rendering it cheap, the labor 

 lost to their favorite crop would not be missed, when thereby a 

 bale of cotton to the acre would not be considered a maximum 

 product, nor two ears of corn to each of the widely separated 

 hills a subject worthy of remark. 



The prejudice of workmen — their not liking to use a different 

 material from that they have been accustomed to — is one reason 

 why the Thomaston lime has successfully competed with all 

 other lime made on the Atlantic coast. The name of that is 

 favorably known and deservedly so, and it will sell when an- 

 other equal to it from another locality will not bring even a very 

 inferior price. There was a remarkable instance of this a short 

 time since in Nev/ York, some excellent lime from Rhode 

 Island hardly finding a market at any price. Most of the Penn- 

 sylvania lime contains magnesia, and yet celebrated as is the 

 Philadelphia mortar for whiteness and durability, and as are the 

 fine farms of Chester and Lancaster counties, which are enrich- 

 ed almost entirely by lime, there is a universal prejudice against 

 magnesian limestones. But this cannot last ; and now that the 

 Tide-water canal is opened, the Susquehannah river lime must 

 soon rival that from Thomaston in our southern ports; that the 

 home-made lime must here come into extensive use, though pre- 

 judice and a want of enterprise may long keep it unused and un- 

 known. This rock belongs to the same formation, and precisely 

 resembles much that which I have seen in the western part of 

 New Jersey. Its composition is no doubt the same, and this is 

 seen in Prof. Rogers's Geological Report of that state, to vary as to 

 the proportion of carbonate of lime from seventy-five to eighty- 

 eight per cent., the residue being chiefly silica, with a very small 

 amount of carb. magnesia, iron and alumina. This too corres- 

 ponds with the analysis given above of the limestone from Jones 



