402 REPORT ON NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1886. 



cellular. This rock is considered one of the best in the State, and is 

 used for all varieties of building purposes, as well as for bases and 

 tombstones. Blocks 11 by 7 by 5J feet and weighing 18 tons have 

 been taken out, which is about as large as the quarries will furnish. 

 It is said to work with comparative ease, and to withstand the weather 

 well. Although having been in use longer than any other stone in the 

 State, it has not as yet shown any change whatever from atmospheric 

 influences. Its powers of resistance to pressure vary from 5,000 to 7,000 

 pounds per square inch. 



At Kasota and Mendota, in Le Seuer County, the dolomite is of a 

 buff or rusty pink color, of homogeneous texture, and very strong and 

 durable. It withstands a pressure of 10,000 pounds per square inch 

 without crushing. Blocks 10 by 11 feet by 1 foot in thickness can be 

 obtained. It is quite generally used throughout the State, the pink 

 variety being most admired and bringing the highest price. 



At Mankato, in Blue Earth County, the rock is also a dolomite, buff in 

 color, fine, compact, and semi- crystalline, sometimes cellular. Blocks 

 20 by 10 by G feet can be obtained from the quarries. 



At Winona the dolomite is quarried for general building purposes, 

 flagging, and burning into lime. It is of a buff color, usually fine and 

 uniform in texture, though sometimes containing cherty lumps, and 

 porous. Blocks of any size that can be handled may be taken from the 

 quarries. 



Missouri. — Limestones and dolomites of a nature unfitted for marbles, 

 but of good quality for general building purposes, occur in great 

 abundance in Saint Louis, Cole, Cooper, Pettis, and Jackson Counties in 

 this State. At present, owing to tke ready accessibility of a good market, 

 the Saint Louis stone is the most extensively quarried of any of these 

 mentioned v The stone, which is of Carboniferous age, is fine-grained 

 and compact, and of a drab color. It is represented as strong and dura- 

 ble and well adapted for the manufacture of lime. At present it is used 

 largely for foundations. A very fine-grained and compact limostone of 

 a dark drab color occurs near Saverton, in Kails County, which has 

 been used to some extent for lithographic purposes. Stones from other 

 localities are mostly compact, and of light or dull red. A very light 

 encrinital stone is quarried in the vicinity of Hamilton and Bear Creek, 

 in Marion County. 



Nebraska. — Fine-grained, light-colored, compact, or sometimes finely 

 fossiliferous and oolitic limestones, apparently of good qualit} 7 , have 

 been received at the Museum from near Eoca, in this State. Also a 

 light-colored fusulina-bearing stone, closely resembling that of Augusta, 

 Kans., from Glen Bock, Nemaha County, and a fine-grained, soft, light- 

 colored fossiliferous stone from La Platte, in Sarpy County. The writer 

 possesses no information regarding the extent to w T hich they have been 

 worked, if at all. 



New Yorfa— With but few exceptions the limestones of this State con- 



