BUILDING AND ORNAMENTAL STONES. 423 



These rocks have been quarried for many years and very extensively 

 used for all manner of constructive purposes. The following list iu^ 

 eludes some of the more important buildings and monuments made 

 wholly or in part from this material : Charter Oak Insurance Building, 

 Hartford, Conn.; soldiers' monument, at Manchester, N. H.; monu* 

 ment to the discoverer of anesthetics; the Germania Savings Bank; 

 Equitable Life Insurance; Masonic Temple; Massachusetts State 

 prison, and some seventy-five other buildings in Boston, and Booth's 

 Theater in New York. 



According to Professor Hitchcock, the more important quarries are 

 situated on what is known as Rattlesnake Hill, an elevation some 600 

 feet above the level of the Merrimac River, and which consists almost 

 entirely of granite rocks. Other granites of this class occur and are 

 quarried at Allentown, Sunapee, and Peterborough, and are used for 

 similar purposes, though they are not widely known outside of New 

 England. Gray biotite granites of good quality are quarried at Mason, 

 Fitz william, Rumney, Hanover, Portsmouth, and other towns, as 

 noticed in the tables. 



The Peterborough, Mason, and Fitzwilliam are exported to some ex- 

 tent to the neighboring States, but the others mentioned are used in 

 the near vicinity. 



The New Hampshire granites are nearly without exception of fine 

 and even grain and well adapted for all kinds of work. The Concord 

 rock is practically identical both in general appearance and mineral 

 composition with that of Hallowell, Maine, already described. 



Neiv York. — This State, although rich in marbles, limestones, and 

 sandstones, produces little of general interest in the way of granite 

 rock. A coarse, gray biotite gneiss is quarried at Hastings- upon-Hud- 

 son, in Westchester County; a somewhat darker hornblendic gneiss at 

 Cold Spring, in Putnam County; and a coarse red hornblendic granite 

 at Clayton, in Jefferson County. 



The gneisses are quarried chiefly for the rough work of foundations 

 in the vicinity. The red granite from Grindstone Island (Clayton post- 

 office) is a beautiful stone and takes a fine polish. The sample for- 

 warded to the National Museum, however, contains particles of iron 

 pyrite, which unfit it for monumental work. The present product of 

 the quarry is made into paving blocks and monuments, principally for 

 Chicago, 111., and Montreal, Canada, though two beautiful columns of 

 it are to be seen in the new capitol building at Albany, N. Y. 



New Jersey. — Aside from a single quarry of greenish-gray gneiss at 

 Dover, Morris County, in this State, no granitic or gneissic rocks are 

 anywhere regularly worked within the State limits. But " Gneissic 

 rocks are found in a few localities in thick beds and so jointed that large 

 ^nd regular blocks can be quarried out at a comparatively small cost. 

 Of the quarries that have been opened and worked to any extent that 

 krt INyer alone is kept steadily in operation. It furnishes a large 



