BUILDING AND ORNAMENTAL STONES. 413 



been used to some extent in Newport, R. I., and some of the materia] 

 may be seen in tbe Chancy Memorial Church at this place. Contrary to 

 the general rule in red granites, the feldspars of this rock are not opaque, 

 but quite clear and transparent, and in point of beauty the rock far 

 excels the celebrated Scotch granites from Peterhead. The Had dam, 

 Greenwich, and Bridgeport gneisses are all hornblendic, very dark 

 gray, and split readily in the direction of their lamination; their uses 

 are strictly local. 



Delaware, — This State produces scarcely anything in the way of gran- 

 ite rocks. A few quarries of a dark gray gneiss are worked near Wil- 

 mington, and are used for general building purposes in this city. One 

 church and several private dwellings have been constructed of this 

 stone, which belongs to the class known as augitehornblende gneiss, 

 since it contains both of these minerals in about equal proportions. 



Georgia. — Although this State is known to contain inexhaustible 

 quantities of building stones of the finest quality, but little systematic; 

 quarrying is done, and none of the rocks have more than a local repu- 

 tation. A hue grade of museovite granite, light gray in color, occurs at 

 Stone Mountain, near Atlanta, and also a dark gray hornbleudic gneiss. 

 A hornblendic granite resembling that of Quiucy, Mass., is said to 

 occur in Oglethorpe County, though the author has never seen any of 

 the material. 



Maine. — The large extent of coast-line of the State of Maine, composed 

 of granitic rocks of a kind suitable for building purposes, renders possi- 

 ble the shipment and transportation of the quarried rock at rates much 

 lower than would otherwise be attainable, the quarries being frequently 

 situated so near the water's edge that little, if any, handling is neces- 

 sary prior to loading upon the vessel. This favorble circumstance, to- 

 gether with the excellent quality of the rock obtainable, led to the early 

 opening of very numerous quarries both ou the mainland and the 

 adjacent islands, and hence at the present time are found Maine granites 

 in very general use in nearly every city of importance in the country, 

 even as far west as California, frequently to the almost entire exclusion 

 of perhaps equally good material close at hand. 



According to the returns furnished by the special agents in theemploy 

 of the building-stone department of the Tenth Census, there were during 

 the census year some eighty-three quarries of various kinds of building 

 stone in the State, situated chieliy either immediately on the coast or 

 within easy reach of tide- water. 



Of these eighty-three quarries seventy-four were of granite or gneiss. 

 The different varieties of these stones produced may be classed under 

 the following heads: Biotite granite, biotite-muscovite grauite, horn- 

 blende granite, hornblende-biotite granite, biotite gneiss, and biotite- 

 muscovite gneiss. 



Biotite granite. — The great majority of the Maine granites are of 

 this kind. They vary usually from light to dark gray in color, though 



