144 MINERAL RESOURCES OF MISSOURI 



about two leagues from Spa, not far from Aix-la-Chapelle, the marble of 

 which closely resembles the ancient specimens. The largest masses known 

 of nero antico are two columns in the church of Eegina Coeli at Eome, but 

 there are also some fine specimens in the Museum of the Capitol and in 

 other collections. Some suppose it to be indentical with the marmor Lucul- 

 lum, which was introduced at Eome, by LucuUus, in the first century b. c, 

 according to Pliny from Melos (another reading is Chios), but according 

 to other authorities from Egypt or Libya, whence it is sometimes called 

 ■marmor Lihycum. Pliny says that Marcus Scaurus had pillars of it thirty- 

 . eio"ht feet high in the atrium of his house. The Chian marble, a deep, 

 transparent black, sometimes variegated with other colors, was quarried on 

 Mount Pelina3us, in the island of Chios. A fine black marble was quarried 

 on Mount Tasnarus, in Laconia, and in the island of Lesbos, and a blue- 

 black marble in Lydia. One of the most beajitiful of the antique breccias, 

 the African breccia, has a deep-black ground, variegated with fragments of 

 grayish white and deep red or purplish wine-color. The grand antique 

 breccia consists of large fragments of black marble united by veins of 

 shining white. Columns of this and of African breccia are in the Paris 

 Museum, but their quarries are unknown. — John D. Champlin, Jr., in Fo-p- 

 ular Science Monthly, May, 1877. 



THE MINERAL RESOURCES OF MISSOURI 



The growth of Missouri in population, wealth, material progress, in the 

 means of intercommunication by her rail and water ways, challenges the 

 admiration of the civilized world. The State of Missouri is larger in its area 

 than the States of Maine, New Hampshire, Yermont,'Ehode Island and Con- 

 necticut together, Missouri having an area of 67,380, while the JSTew Eng- 

 land States embrace but 66,124 square miles. Missouri has a greater variety 

 of soil, a more genial climate and a more desirable combination of the ele- 

 ments that tend to the permanent prosperity of a people than any of the 

 other States in the Union. Doubly blessed is she indeed ; with her certain 

 harvest of rich crops on the surface, and her boundless mineral wealth over- 

 flowing nature's storehouse beneath. 



Missouri within her boundaries contains a greater variety and larger 

 quantities of the most useful minerals than any other territory of the same 

 extent on the American Continent. 



Coal and iron afford the most permanent basis of commercial and manu- 

 facturing prosperity. It is the coal and iron deposits that have contributed 

 in the greatest measure to the building up of the most powerful nations of 

 the earth, and it is not diflScult to see the magnificent future of this great 

 State, when her mineral interests shall be as thoroughly organized and per- 

 fectly systematized as are these interests in the old world. A celebrated 

 writer says and truly, that "Coal is now the indispensable ailiment of in- 



