40 Report on Building Stone of New York. 



practice is to blast down great masses of rock, which are broken up 

 into suitable blocks for building stone, and which are sent into the 

 market rough dressed. The mill has not been worked for the past 

 two years. This marble is white and very coarse-crystalline ; hence 

 its name. It is somewhat harder than the Vermont marble and does 

 not compete with the latter for monumental work. It was used in 

 the St. Patrick's Roman Catholic cathedral, Fifth avenue, and in the 

 front of the Union Dime Savings Bank building, Sixth avenue and 

 Thirty-second street, New York city ; also in the M. E. church in 

 Sins: Sins:. 



Hastings, Westchester County. — The marble quarry on the 

 bank of the Hudson, south of the Hudson River Railroad station, has 

 been idle for a long time. The stone is a dolomitic limestone, white, 

 and rather fine-crystalline. 



Sing Sing. — A large quarry in the crystalline limestone, east of 

 the prison and on the State property, was formerly worked for 

 marble. The workings extend for a quarter of a mile from north-east 

 to south-west, but the stone now raised is burned into lime. The old 

 (marble) quarry is higher and nearer the surface than the present 

 quarry floor. And the stone which is now taken out is, apparently, 

 more durable and stronger than much of the marble. Some of it has 

 a yellow-white shade, but the mass is white. In texture it is fine- 

 crystalline. 



This old quarry is famous for the buildings which have been con- 

 structed of its stone. The State prison buildings here and the State 

 Hall at Albany are examples.* 



At Sparta, south of Sing Sing, marble is quarried by a New York 

 city firm. The opening is at the east side of the main road and is 

 about 200 feet long, north and south, and varies from 60 feet to 90 

 feet in width. The extreme depth is 40 feet. The beds dip 55° east- 

 south-east. The marble has a yellowish-white shade of color, and is 

 fine-crystalline. The outcropping ledges at the side of the quarry 

 show that the surface rock is friable and crumbles readily to a sandy 

 mnss. The stone at the bottom is solid and apparently more durable. 



* It is interesting- here to refer to a statement made by Mather in his Report on the 

 First District, p. 455, in which he says that "many blocks of this rock were brought 

 to Albany for the construction of the new State Hall, that were already crumbling' ; 

 but whether they were put in the structure, or rejected by the builders, as they 

 ought to have been, I do not know." Probably not, as we know the structure ! 



