108 Report on Building Stone of New York. 



The top beds range in thickness from a few inches to a foot. The 

 gray limestone (3) is sometimes one solid bed, but in places it is 

 divided by a bedding plane, and an upper layer, 20 inches thick, can 

 be lifted off. The strata dip gently toward the north-west. There is 

 at irregular intervals, and generally from 10 to 20 feet apart, a 

 north-west dipping system of joints whose faces resemble 

 those of slickensides. It does not penetrate deeply into the gray 

 stone. The top, blue, limestone, is not dressed, but is sold for com- 

 mon walls or rubble work. It is a good stone for lime making. The 

 gray limestone is fine-crystalline to sub-crystalline, and of a light- 

 gray shade of color, when fine-pointed or bush-hammered. Polished 

 surfaces looks almost like black marble. It is mostly worked into cut 

 stone for house trimmings. For rock-ashlar also it looks well. The 

 blue limestone at the bottom is occasionally quarried and cut for 

 bridge work. But the product of the quarry goes mainly into 

 house work. The drainage is to the river, and no pumping is neces- 

 sary, as at the south-west end of the opening the bottom rock is on a 

 level with the ordinary water level. Two derricks are in use for 

 hoisting and loading the stone. Stone from this quarry may be seen 

 in the churches in Amsterdam. 



James Shanahan's quarry is east-north-east of the Tribes Hill 

 railroad station, about 60 rods. It is on the north side of the 

 Central railroad track, and has a face of 500 feet from east to 

 west, and from 25 feet in height at the east end to a height of 

 50 feet near the west end. The lowest excavation is 15 feet below 

 the railroad grade and at least 10 feet above the river. The top beds 

 are thin and siliceous in part, and there is some dark-blue, thin-bedded 

 limestone in the upper part. The lower beds are thick and a gray, 

 sub-crystalline limestone. And there is a thickness of 25 feet of beds, 

 from two to four feet thick. The dip is approximately 5° south 65° 

 west. One main system of joints, vertical, runs north 80° west, and 

 a second system, less well marked runs at right angles to it. There 

 are four derricks, and a track into the quarry. The drainage is nat- 

 ural. The product was largely for heavy masonry. As the stone is 

 rather hard it does not dress easily. The quarry has been idle for 

 several years. 



At Rocky Hill, three-eighths of a mile north-east of the village, 

 quarries have been worked on lands of Victor Putnam and Henry 

 Hurst. The stone in the upper beds is black and thin-bedded. The 

 dip is gentle to south-west and the excavations are shallow, and in the 



