BUILDING MATERIALS, 87 
I have visited this locality several times. The bed is regular, not nodu- 
lar like the steatite and serpentine beds in Vermont. The opening is 80 
feet.long, 40 wide, and 80 deep, a little wider at the bottom than at the 
top. The bed has been followed for 400 feet in length. The peculiarity 
of the stone consists in the uniform distribution through it of spherical 
radiated aggregations of crystalline plates of talc. These make the stone 
uniformly strong in all directions, unlike most of the Vermont rock, 
which is apt to split along seams of original structure. The Frances- 
town stone has largely superseded that from Vermont for the manufac- 
ture of stoves. I have already alluded to the dissemination of minute 
crystalline bits of pyrrhotite disseminated through the soapstone without 
seemingly injuring it. 
The presence of radiated spherules marks this bed in its stratigraphical 
distribution. Other beds of it are found in Weare, Warner, Canterbury, 
and Richmond. The first named is near the top of Mt. Misery, and has 
been quite extensively opened by Hon. M. A. Hodgdon. I saw it first 
in 1869, and judged the bed to be 15 feet wide and quite hard. The 
stone had the same lithological features with that in Francestown, and 
occupies the same stratigraphical position. The excavation was about 
10 feet deep. Two or three years later, the bed had been better defined 
by additional excavation. The hole in 1874 was seen to be 71 feet long 
and 60 feet wide, representing the width of the soapstone. Two or three 
large bunches of hard rock—horses—occur in it, one of them estimated to 
be 35 feet long. In going down there was seen, first, the common country 
rock, underlaid by a coarse-grained ledge with long hornblende crystals 
capping the soapstone. The latter rock.is at the top inferior to that 
found lower down. Small bunches of granitic rock occurred occasion- 
ally; and the pyrrhotite showed itself in a vein three inches wide. The 
work was prosecuted far enough to determine the nature of the stone 
underneath the principal horse. The material was soft, but somewhat 
shelly. The great improvement in the appearance of the stone over what 
it was on the surface leads us to believe that good material will event- 
ually be quarried here. 
Mr. Hodgdon has also opened the ledge in the south-east corner of 
Warner, in the same bed, or its repetition by a fold. The bed is over 20 
feet in width, and deserves to be opened more fully. 
