in the Counties of New-Haven and Litchfield. 223 
magnitude ; in other places it is fine grained, looking al- 
most like lump or loaf sugar. Some of it is decidedly 
what mineralogists term dolomite, and all of it comes un+ 
der the denomination of granularly foliated. It is, accor- 
ding to scientific arrangements, of the same kind with the 
statuary marble, and yet, it may be questioned whether any 
of it would answer for statues. Those of the ancients were 
made principally from the Parian marble, so called from its 
coming from the island of Paros in the Grecian Archipelago, 
although it is well ascertained that several other islands, as 
Naxos, Tenos, &c. in that sea afford similar marble: I be- 
dieve all the statues of the moderns and some of those of the 
ancients are composed of the Carrara marble, thus denomi- 
nated from the place where it is found in Italy. To fit a 
marble for the use of the statuary, it shouid be highly crys- 
taline, and yet with a pretty fine grain; it should be per- 
fectly white, entirely free from flaws and from foreign mine- 
rals, and it should be very firm. ‘The finest pieces of 
Washington and New-Milford marble probably come as 
near this description as any marble as yet found in this 
country, but it is too often mixed with tremolite, often in- 
deed in such fine crystals and other forms* that it is very 
beautiful to the eye of a mineralogist, although it would be 
a blemish to the statuary. 
The most beautiful pieces of this marble are apt to be of 
the most tender consistence, and an artist after toiling with 
immense pains to finish a fine statue, would be very much 
chagrined to find a delicate prominent part, as a nose, an ear, 
or a lip, suddenly break off, or filled with crystals of tremolite. 
Statuary marble, although not-a remarkably hard stone is 
‘one of the most durable. Hence, says Patrin, “ it is sought 
for, for the construction of the most sumptuous edifices, and 
of monuments which are intended to be at once magnifi- 
cent and durable. Marble is one of the least destructible 
materials ; of this we have proof in those precious statues 
which are an eternal monument of the genius of the artists 
of ancient Greece. They have supported the injuries of 
twenty centuries while the scythe of time has not been able 
to glance on the brilliant polish of their surfaces.” 
Mihese ranges of marble extend a great way North and 
South, and are quarried in many and distant places. In the 
* Scarcely inferior in beauty te the tremolite of fhe Alps. 
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