360 REPORT ON NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1886. 



comparison with their length. It not infrequently happens that several 

 isolated outcrops occur on the same line of strata, sometimes several 

 miles apart, and in many cases alternating with beds of dolomitic lime- 

 stone that are scattered along with them. 



At least sixty beds of this rock occur in the State in the towns of Reads- 

 boro, Marlborough, Newfane, Windham, Townsend, Athens, Grafton, 

 Andover, Chester, Cavendish, Baltimore, Ludlow, Plymouth, Bridge- 

 water, Thetford, Bethel, .Rochester, Warren, Braintree, Waitsfield, 

 Moretown, Duxbury, Waterbury, Bolton, Stow, Cambridge, Waterville, 

 Berkshire, Eden, Lowell, Belvidere, Johnson, Enosburgh, Westfield, 

 Richford, Troy, and Jay. 



Of the beds named those in Grafton and Athens are stated to have 

 been longest worked and to have produced the most stone. The beds 

 lie in gneiss. The quarries were profitably worked as early as 1820. 

 Another important bed is that in the town of Weathersfield. This, 

 like that of Grafton, is situated in gneiss, but has no overlying rock, 

 and the soap-stone occurs in inexhaustible quantities. It was first 

 worked about 1847, and during 1859 about 800 tons of material were 

 removed and sold. The Rochester beds were also of great importance, 

 the stone being peculiarly fine-grained and compact. It was formerly 

 lnucfl used in the manufacture of refrigerators. The quality of the 

 stone is represented to be unusually good and free from impurities.* 

 The bed at Newfane occurs in connection with serpentine, and is some 

 half a mile in length by not less than 12 rods in width at its northern 

 extremity. The soap-stone and serpentine are strangely mixed, and the 

 general course of the bed being like that of an irregular vein of granite 

 in limestone. 



Virginia. — Soap-stone occurs in this State, according to Professor 

 Rogers, f near the mouth of the Hardware River, both in Fluvanna and 

 Buckingham Counties. There is also a bed of it associated with the tal- 

 cose slates in Albemarle County, a little west of the Green Mountain. 

 Specimens have been received from near this locality which were of ex- 

 cellent quality. The beds from here extend in a southwesterly direction, 

 passing through Nelson County, where they are associated with serpen- 

 tine ; thence they cross the James River above Lynchburgh, and present 

 an outcrop about 2 miles westward of the town on the road leading to 

 Liberty ; also one about 2 J miles westward of New London. Continuing 

 in the same direction it is seen at the meadows of Goose Creek, where 

 it has been quarried to some extent. Continuing in the same general 

 direction the soap-stone again appears in several nearly parallel ranges, 

 of which the most eastern makes its appearance near the Pigg River, 

 in Franklin County. A second belt occurs in the same vicinity near 

 the eastern base of Jack's Mountain ; a third still farther west, about 1 



mile from Franklin Court-House, and a fourth yet more to the west, on 



* . . , . . . . 



* Geology of Vermont, Vol. II, p. 783-91. 

 t Geology of the Virginias, p. 79. 



