282 BULLETIN OF THE NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



IV 



ON THE USE OF STONE IN CITIES 



The outcrops of the geological formations, which contain 

 stone suitable for building, are so extensive and so widely 

 distributed in New York that all of its larger towns and 

 cities have either near, or within their limits, quarries for 

 the local supply. It may be said that every city in the 

 state, having a population of twenty thousand and upward, 

 excepting Brooklyn, is built on rock. And there are stone 

 quarries in nearly all of them, although not all produce 

 good stone. The interior water-ways and the net-work of 

 railway lines afford low rates of transportation and a choice 

 of building stone from many state localities, and from the 

 great stone-quarry districts of New England and of the west. 

 Large amounts are imported from Europe, almost exclusively 

 for construction in New York and Brooklyn. There has 

 been a notably larger use of stone in the cities of the central 

 and western-central parts of the state, as compared with the 

 towns in the Hudson river valley, and the southern tier of 

 counties. Many of the oldest buildings in the older towns 

 and cities are of stone. The later introduction of brick, 

 and the extraordinary development of the brick-making in- 

 dustry, especially in the Hudson river valley, has tended to 

 check the use of stone for ordinary construction ; so much 

 so, that only the larger and more permanent structures are 

 of stone. The increase of wealth, and a better architectural 

 taste, have stimulated the building of expensive stone 

 dwelling-houses, as well as more costly church edifices and 

 other structures for public use. The resources of the 

 state, in its numerous quarries of the most durable as well 

 as beautiful building stone are great, and it is to be hoped 

 that all who are in any wise interested in the beautifying of 

 homes, and in the erection of buildings which are to be of 



