BUILDING AND ORNAMENTAL STONES. 387 



The stone occurs ill beds usually but a few feet in thickness, which 

 vary considerably in color, so that several grades, from pure white 

 through greenish, bluish, and almost black, may be taken from the 

 same quarry.* As a rule the best marbles in the State occur where the 

 beds or strata staud at high angles, as at West Rutland. The quarries 

 themselves at this village lie along the western base of a low range of 

 hills, which, to the ordinary observer, give no sign of the vast wealth 

 of material concealed beneath their gray and uninteresting exterior. In 

 quarrying, the best beds are selected, and upon their upturned edges 

 excavation is commenced, first by blasting, to remove the weathered 

 and worthless material, and afterward by channeling, drilling, and wedg- 

 ing; no powder being used lest the fine massive blocks become shat- 

 tered and unfit for use. The quarry thus descends in the form of a 

 rectangular pit, with almost perpendicular, often overhanging, walls, to 

 a depth of sometimes more than 200 feet, when the beds are found to 

 curve to the eastward and pass under the hill, becoming thus more 

 nearly horizontal; in following these the quarry assumes the appear- 

 ance of a vast cavern from whose smoke- blackened, gaping mouths 

 one would little suppose could be drawn the huge blocks of snow-white 

 material lying in gigantic piles in the near vicinity (see Plate i). Some 

 of the quarries have been partially roofed over to protect them from 

 snow and rain, and seem like mines rather than quarries. The scant 

 daylight at the bottom is scarce sufficient to guide the quarryman in 

 his w T ork. As one peers cautiously over the edge into the black and 

 seemingly bottomless abyss, naught but darkness and ascending smoke 

 and steam are visible, while his astonished ears are filled with such an 

 unearthly clamor of quarrying machines, the puffing of engines, and the 

 shouts of laborers, as is comparable with nothing within the range of 

 our limited experience. 



The stone taken from the quarries is worked up in the companies' 

 shops in the immediate vicinity or shipped in the rough as occasion de- 

 mands. The supply is used for monumental, decorative, or statuary 

 work and general building. 



Other quarries in which the stone so closely resembles that of Rut- 

 laud as to need no special description, are situated at East Dorset and 

 Dorset, Wallingford, Pittsford, Sutherland Falls, Brandon, and Mid- 

 dlebury. At Sutherland Falls the stone is very massive, and large 



* Professor Hitchcock (Geology of Vermont, Vol. n, p. 764) gives tiie following fig- 

 ures relative to the marble-beds at one of the West Rutland quarries, beginning at 

 the eastern side or top layer : 



1. Upper blue layer, 4 feet thick. 



2. Upper white layer, 3 feet 6 inches 



thick. 



3. Gray limestone layer, 5 feet thick. 



4. White statuary layer, 3 feet thick. 



5. Striped layer, 1 foot 8 inches thick. 



6. New white layer, 4 feet thick. 



7. Wedged white layer, from 8 inches to 



2 feet 6 inches thick. 



8. Muddy layer, 4 feet thick. 



9. Striped green layer, 4 feet thick. 



10. Camphor-gum layer, 3 feet thick. 



11. White layer, 9 feet thick. 



12. 131 ue layer, 3 feet G inches, 



