OKLAHOMA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 115 



(1) The material enjoys a good demand because it requires less 

 skilled labor to pour concrete than to cut and lay stone. (2) Form 

 builders are more plentiful than stone masons. (3) The work in 

 the qu.irry or ihe pit is largely com.moi; labor, which can be drawn 

 from other industries as occasion demands. (4) Building stone 

 quarries require many specially ski'.led men and these must be 

 developed within the industry, they cannot be drawn from the out- 

 side. 



The unlimited supply of limestone suitable for crushed rock 

 which exists in the Arbuckle mountains is too we.l known to require 

 description. Ten-acre rock, near Troy in Johnston county is, as its 

 name implies, a great mound of massive granite from which blocks 

 of any size can be secured. In the vicinity of Tishomingo the 

 weathered granite fills the stream channels with a mixture of 

 granite gravel and sand Avhich is used for concrete, it being nec- 

 essary to add only the cement. In places the granite is deeply 

 altered in place giving a material having excellent wearing and 

 binding qualities which is used for hard-surfacing the roads. 



The oolitic Wapanucka is remarkable for its extreme purity 

 ;'.iul for its great thickness, uniformity, and freedom from bedding 

 :^cams and cracks. In the quarry at Bromide there is a thickness of 

 sixty feet without a bedding seam. However, the Wapanucka lime- 

 stone from Limestone Gap to irlartsliorne 'is thin bedded, contains 

 shale seams, and is so cracked and flinty that, in most places, it is 

 suitable for crushed stone only. 



The St. Clair marble, near Marble City, Sequoyah county, is 

 really a crystaline limestone, but in places it yields stone that serves 

 well for marble. While it is very flinty in places, there are large 

 bodies suitable for building stone and for marble. A sample from 

 the quarry pit near Marble City was very pure calcium carbonate, 

 the only impurity present in appreciable quantities being magnesia, 

 which might make it unsuitable for cement manufacture. Be that 

 as it may, it is an excellent material for lime-making and, fortun- 

 ately, wood for fuel is plentiful. The sandstone from the Winslow 

 formation, which outcrops near by, has been used to build a school 

 house in Marble City. The brown standstone and Avhite marble 

 trimming make a striking combination. 



From Tahlequah northeast to the Missouri line we were on 

 the Boone formation. It is flint, for the most part, which breaks up 

 by mechanical weathering so that every slope resembles a pile of 

 crushed stone. These flint chips are used in making concrete and 

 for road metal. The scenery, by the way, .is beautiful, but the 

 tourist should be prepared to buy new casings frequently. There 



