BUILDING AND ORNAMENTAL St ONES. 363 



color renders it equally objectionable for purposes of general construc- 

 tion. 



The rock is also abundant in other parts of the State, but the writer 

 having seen none of the material, excepting as displayed in small frag- 

 ments in the State museum at San Francisco, will refrain from further 

 remarks on the subject. 



Connecticut. — The serpentine deposits of Connecticut are thus de- 

 scribed by Professor Shepard.* " Connecticut prospers, however, in the 

 green marbles of Milford, a material for decoration much more beauti- 

 ful and highly prized than white marble. These were first detected in 

 1811. Two quarries were soon after opened, one near the village of 

 Milford, and called the Milford quarry; the other 2£ miles west of New 

 Haven, and called the New Haven quarry. They were wrought with 

 considerable activity for several years, and furnished an abundance of 

 very rich marble ; but as the working of them was attended with heavy 

 expense from the difficulty of obtaining blocks of large dimensions that 

 were perfectly sound, and from the labor required in sawing and pol- 

 ishing, they were in a few years abandoned, and have for a long time 

 been in a neglected condition. The experiment proved an unfortunate 

 one, therefore, not from any deficiency of marble or its lack of beauty — 

 for these were both fully admitted — but from a want of wealth and 

 taste in the country to sustain the price. 



It was perhaps an unfortunate thing that the whole of the marble 

 afforded by these quarries was denominated verde antique, whereas but 

 a small part of that furnished is entitled to this name. 



The quarry at Milford is capable of furnishing abundant supplies of 

 this highly valued marble (i.e., the verde antique variety), although, 

 from the circumstance that it occupies narrow and irregular seams 

 among the veined marble blocks or slabs of any size, it must always be 

 dear compared with pieces sawn as formerly, without any regard to its 

 separation from the more common kind. * * * Whenever the attempt 

 to work it is made, it is to be hoped that the experience of the past will 

 prevent its use for monuments exposed to the weather, for besides the 

 incongruity of its colors compared with the marbles usually employed 

 for this purpose, it soon loses its lustre and emits color from the action 

 of the weather on the grains of magnetic iron ore it contains. 



The New Haven marble, though destitute of the accidental and in 

 some measure classical value which pertains to the Milford variety, is 

 nevertheless a beautiful thing for decoration. In vivacity of colors 

 and the delicacy of their arrangement it is hardly capable of being sur- 

 passed. It may be described as a bluish gray or dove-colored limestone 

 clouded with greenish yellow serpentine, the latter containing black 

 grains and sheet veins of magnetic iron ore. The disposition of the 

 colors is cloud-like, flamed, and veined. It polishes with difficulty in 



* Keport on the geological survey of Connecticut, by C. U. Shepard, 1837, pp. 101— 

 103. 





