384 REPORT ON NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1886 



now "Tennessee marble" is one of the widest known and most generally 

 used of our ornamental stones. 



At the present time the most extensive quarries are situated in Knox 

 and Hawkins Counties. The prevailing colors found here are chocolate 

 red and white, often coarsely variegated and fossiliferous; though finely 

 and evenly crystalline varieties of a beautiful pink or " strawberry " 

 color, with scarcely a trace of fossil remains, also occur. All of them 

 cut to a sharp edge and acquire a beautiful and lasting polish not ex- 

 celled and rarely equaled by any foreign or domestic marbles. Of for- 

 eign marbles, so far as the writer is aware, they have no exact counter- 

 part, but perhaps resemble the " Kosso de Levanto " from Spezia, or 

 the Persian "fiorto," more closely than any other that can be men- 

 tioned. 



Besides the localities above mentioned, colored marbles occur in the 

 following counties in this part of the State : Hancock, Grainger, Jeffer- 

 son, Roane, Blount, Monroe, McMinn, and Bradley ; some also occur in 

 Meigs, Anderson, Union, and Campbell Counties. The Hawkins County 

 marble is part of a comparatively short belt of Trenton and Nashville 

 rocks lying west of Eogersville. It is some 16 or 17 miles long, and 

 from 50 to 300 feet in thickness. The supply is therefore practically 

 unlimited and inexhaustible. The best variety of the stone is used only 

 for ornamental work, owing to its high price, being valued at from $2 

 to $3 per cubic foot delivered at the nearest railway station. 



The Knox County quarries are mostly situated within a few miles of 

 the city of Knoxville. According to Dr. Safford* the entire thickness 

 of the marble bed here is some 300 feet, the different layers of which 

 vary from chocolate red and white variegated varieties through grayish 

 white, pinkish, and more rarely greenish colors. The most esteemed 

 variety has when polished a brownish red color, with white spots and 

 clouds, due to fossil corals and crinoids. The grayish white variety, 

 which is the nearest approach to a truly white marble of any now 

 found in the State, is greatly esteemed for tombstones, monuments, til- 

 ing, etc., and is said to be very durable, tombstones which have been 

 exposed for upward of thirty years showing no signs of disintegration 

 or wear. Both the Hawkins County and Knox County stones are very 

 strong and heavy, weighing about 180 pounds per cubic foot, which is 

 some 14 pounds heavier than granite. Quite similar variegated marbles 

 are said to occur in many of the counties of the Cumberland table-land, 

 as in Franklin County, on the Elk Eiver ; at the Oil Springs, on Leipor's 

 Creek, in Maury County. Some of the marbles of this latter place 

 have a grayish groundmass, with fleecy clouds of red and green.t 



A beautiful olive-green fossiliferous marble is also found in the elev- 

 enth district of Davidson County, though the extent of the deposit is 

 not known by the writer. Near Calhoun, in McMinn County, just south 



*Op.cit., pages 236, 237. 



t Tennessee and its Agricultural and Mineral Wealth, by J, B. Killebrew, page 149, 



