BUILDING AND ORNAMKNTAL STONES. ^93 



built about the middle of the eighteenth coutury. The rock is coin 

 posed simply of shells of a bivalve mollusk more or less broken and 

 cemented together by the same material in a more finely divided state. 

 Fragments of shells an inch or more in diameter occur. The rock is 

 loosely compacted and very porous, but in a mild climate like chat of 

 Florida is nevertheless very durable. The quarries were opened up- 

 wards of two hundred years ago, but the stone is not now extensively 

 used, owing in part to the dampness of houses constructed of it, and in 

 part to the cheapness of wood. The rock, which is popularly known as 

 Coquina (the Spanish word for shell), is of Upper Eocene age. In the 

 quarries the stone lies within a few feet of the surface, and can be cut 

 out with an ax, in sizes and shapes to suit. 



The oolitic limestone occurring at Key West has been quarried and 

 used in the construction of numerous private and public buildings in 

 that vicinity. 



Kansas. — The limestones and dolomites of this State are, as a rule, 

 of a light color, soft and porous and incapable of receiving a polish 

 such as will fit them for any form of ornamental work. Many of them 

 are cellular and loosely compacted, being made up in large part of a 

 small fossil rhizopod about the size of a grain of wheat and known 

 under the name of fusulina. Such stones are obviously unfitted for 

 exposed work in localities subject to great extremes of temperature, 

 although they may be very durable in mild or dry climates. Those at 

 present quarried are almost without exception of Carboniferous or 

 Permian age, and occur only in thin beds, varying from a few inches 

 to 8 or 10 feet in thickness. 



Near Irving there occurs a light-colored, soft, thin-bedded stone, 

 which, though not quarried during the census year, has in times past 

 been used for building purposes in Atchison and Kansas City. It is 

 soft and easily quarried and for ordinary construction requires but 

 little dressing. At Frankfort a similar stone occurs which has been 

 used to some extent for buildings, though principally for foundations. 

 Some of the stone from these localities are of very poor quality, being 

 soft and quite cellular through the breaking away of the small fossils 

 above referred to. Atchison, in the same county, has quarries of a 

 darker, more compact stone, which are worked for local use. 



In the vicinity of Topeka there are quarried light-colored, compact, 

 finely fossiliferous dolomites and limestones which work very readily, 

 and which have been used in the construction of about thirty-five 

 common buildings in that city, besides a church, school, and opera 

 houses in Emporia. They have also been used in Farsons, in Labette 

 County, and neighboring towns in Missouri. 



Near Lane, in Franklin County, gray and buff limestones are quarried 

 and used quite extensively in Ottawa and Garnett, in the same Stare, 

 though some have been shipped to Chicago. The buff variety is some- 

 times oolitic, resembling to some extent the Bedford (Indiana) stone. 



