BUILDING AND ORNAMENTAL STONES. 359 



compact variety of the mineral pyropbyllite. This is also used as white 

 earth. Both these stones are shipped in bulk to New York, where they 

 are ground and bolted. The stones from the other localities are of the 

 ordinary type of soap-stones, but apparently of good quality. 



Pennsylvania, — In the southern edge of Montgomery County, u ex- 

 tending from the northern brow of Chestnut Hill between the two turn- 

 pikes, across the Wissahiekon Creek and the Schuylkill to a point about 

 a mile west of Merion Square," occurs a long, straight outcrop of stea- 

 tite and serpentine. The eastern and central part of this belt on its 

 southern side u consists chiefly of a talcose steatite" while the north- 

 ern side contains much serpentine interspersed in lumps through the 

 steatite. Only in a few neighborhoods does the steatite or serpentine 

 occur in a state of sufficient purity to be profitably quarried. On the 

 east bank of the Schuylkill, about 2 miles below Spring Mill, a good 

 quality of material occurs that has long been successfully worked. It 

 has also been quarried on the west bank of the river about a third 

 of a mile away, and to a less extent on the west bank of the Wissa- 

 hiekon, opposite Thorp's Mill. The material is now used principally for 

 lining stoves, fire-places, and furnaces, though toward the end of the 

 last century and the early part of the present one, before the intro- 

 duction of Montgomery County marble, it was in considerable demand 

 for door- steps and sills. It proved poorly adapted for this purpose, 

 however, owing to the unequal hardness of its different constituents, 

 the soap stone wearing rapidly away, while the serpentine was left pro- 

 jecting like knots or " hob-nails in a plank."* 



South Carolina. — Steatite or soap-stone is said to occur in this State 

 in the counties of Chester, Spartanburgh, Union, Pickens, Oconee, An- 

 derson, Abbeville, Kershaw, Fairfield, and Richland. The Anderson 

 County stone is said to have been much used for hearthstones. That 

 of Pickens County is considered of value, but it has been quarried to 

 a very limited extent.t 



The writer has seen some of this material. The national collections 

 contain a single specimen of a very compact, nearly black steatitic 

 rock marked as from Yorkville, in York County, but there are no data 

 concerning its occurrence or utility. 



Texas. — Soap-stone of good quality and inexhaustible in quantity is 

 stated to occur in large veins on the Hondo and Sandy Creeks, about 

 midway of their courses through Llano County.f 



Vermont. — Most of the steatite of this State is found on the east side 

 of the Green Mountains and near the eastern line of the talcose slate 

 formation, beds of it extending nearly the entire length of the State. 

 The rock occurs usually associated with serpentine and hornblende. 

 The beds are not continuous and have, as a rule, a great thickness in 



* Rep. C 4 , Geol. Survey of Pa., pp. 95, 96. 



t South Caroliua, Population, Resources, etc., 1883. 



$ Second Aun. Rep. Geol. of Tex., 1876, p. 26. 



