400 REPORT ON NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1880. 



ure well, and is considered one of the most reliable stones in the 

 State. 



Compact fine-grained limestones of a dark drab color, taking a smooth 

 surface, but not suited for marble, are found in the towns of Franklin, 

 Simpson County; Lebanon, Marion County; Russellville, Logan County, 

 and others. A part of the Franklin County stone is fine grained and 

 suitable for lithographic purposes, though inferior to the imported 

 Bavarian stone. Very light colored compact limestones are found also 

 in Simpson, Logan, and Franklin Counties, but we have no information 

 regarding their availability or the extent to which they are quarried. 



Maine. — Limestone is an abundant and common rock in this Stale, 

 especially in the southeastern part, in the counties of Knox and Lin- 

 coln, where it is very extensively burnt into quicklime. So far as I am 

 aware none of the stone is utilized for building, as its colors — blue and 

 blue-black, veined with white — are poorly adapted for such purposes. 

 No stone suitable for marble is yet known to occur in the State, though 

 Hitchcock* expresses the opinion that such may yet be found in "the 

 belt of llelderberg limestone, running from Matagamon (east branch 

 Penobscot) River northeasterly." 



Many samples of so-called white marbles have been taken from the 

 limestone formations about Rockland, in Knox County, but, so far as 

 observed by the present writer, they are all too coarsely crystalliue or 

 too distinctly granular in structure to be of value. 



Michigan. — Limestone or dolomites of a character suitable for build- 

 ing purposes are at present but little quarried in this State, the entire 

 value of the output during the census year being but about $20,000. 

 A line-grained fossil iferous dolomite of a drab color is worked at Sib- 

 ley's Station, in Wayne County, and a very light colored granular rock, 

 of similar composition, near Raisin ville, in Monroe County. Near Al- 

 pena light-colored limestones are quarried which are hard, compact, and 

 said to be durable. They are not obtainable anywhere in large quan- 

 tities nor in blocks of large size, but there are numerous small openings 

 sufficient to supply the local demand. Other localities where stone can 

 be obtained are at Trenton, near Detroit, and upon Macon Creek, both 

 in Monroe County. The stone is apt to contain dry seams and requires 

 care in selecting. These are all of Devonian age. 



Minnesota. — The Lower Silurian limestones and dolomites of this 

 State, which are at present the only ones quarried, are, as shown by 

 the Museum collection, nearly all of a light buff, drab, or blue color, 

 fine-grained and compact, though in some cases cellular and semi- 

 crystalline, according to Professor Winchell.t 



The stone appears in the bluffs of the Mississippi River and St. Croix 

 Valley, and is quarried at all points where (except Lake City) there is 

 any demand between Stillwater and Winona, along the Mississippi Val- 



* Second Animal Rep. Gool. of Maine, 1862, p. 428. 

 tRep. Tenth Census, p. 249, and Geol. of Minn, vol. 



