448 W. F. PEOUTY CRYSTALLINE MARBLES OF ALABAMA 



The chief attractiveness of Alabama marble is due to its life and to its 

 warmth of coloring. The white marble is for the most part a cream 

 white rather than a bluish white, the more common characteristic of the 

 Italian marble. The Alabama marble is, moreover, unusually trans- 

 lucent, in this characteristic resembling the famous Parian marble. A 

 number of varieties of Alabama marble result from the different direc- 

 tions in which the blocks are sawed. Banded marble, clouded marble, or 

 marble of nearly uniform color result from cuts respectively at large 

 angles, at small angles, and parallel to the schist line in the stone. 



Alabama marble is slightly finer in grain than the Vermont and very 

 much finer than the Georgia marble. The crystals are also very much 

 interlocked, as a rule (see figure 8), giving toughness to the stone, but 

 making it more difficult to saw than the Vermont marbles. The low 

 absorption and high compressive strength and sonorousness which the 

 Alabama marble possesses to a marked degree is to be expected from the 

 fine interlocking character of its grains. 



Chemically the Alabama marble is a very pure calcium carbon. The 

 chief impurities are silica and magnesia. Iron is usually very low. In 

 most cases when there is a small amount of magnesia or a trace of it, its 

 presence is to be accounted for by its occurrence in the chlorite or talc 

 which furnish the chief coloring agents in the marble. 



QUARRY METHODS 



On account of the more distinct bedding in the Alabama marble de- 

 posits than in either the Vermont or the Georgia, the method of quarry- 

 ing in Alabama is considerably different from the method employed in 

 either of these States and more like that in Tennessee. The blocks in all 

 cases are taken out parallel to the bedding plane and also parallel to the 

 main lines of unsoundness (see figure 15), whether this unsoundness is 

 down the dip or oblique to it. It was the early practice in some of the 

 quarries to run the channeling machines parallel with the dip, irrespective 

 of the direction of the main joints or headers," but such practice has 

 proven very wasteful. In the background of the photograph (figure 15) 

 is seen the old method of quarrying directly down the dip, and in the 

 foreground of the picture can be seen the new method of making cuts for 

 the blocks parallel with the main lines of unsoundness, in this case not 

 in the direction of dip. 



In the quarry of the Alabama Marble Company (the largest marble 

 company in the State) tunneling is now being employed in order to 

 secure the largest possible floor space with the least possible expense, and 

 at the same time to develop this floor space in the marble deep in the 

 quarry, where unsoundness from weathering is at a minimum. 



