BUILDING AND ORNAMENTAL STONES. 4G1 



various shades of red or pink color. These have been used to some 

 extent in Salt Lake City. 



Virginia. — The belt of Triassic sandstone upon which the quarries of 

 Seneca Creek, in Maryland, are situated extends across the Potomac 

 River in a southwesterly direction as far as the Rapidan River, in 

 Virginia. So far as the curator is aware, but a single attempt has been 

 made to quarry this material. On the line of the Manassas and Vir- 

 ginia Midland Railroad, at a point not far from Manassas, quarries were 

 opened about 1868, and up to the time of the taking of the tenth cen- 

 sus some 400,000 cubic feet of material had been moved. As repre- 

 sented in the collection of the National Museum the stone is fine-grained, 

 light reddish brown in color, closely resembling the lighter varieties 

 from Seneca Creek, from which, however, it differs in being softer and 

 a trifle more absorbent. The quarries are represented as being situated 

 near the top of a low eminence, the strata being nearly horizontal, with 

 but a slight dip toward the south. The surface only of the ledge has 

 been quarried and this to a depth of about 20 feet. The beds vary from 

 1 to 6 feet in thickness and are separated by a greenish shale. 



No other sandstones of any importance are at present quarried within 

 the State limits, although formerly the beds of light gray or buff Juro- 

 Cretaceous stone in the vicinity of Aquia Creek were worked to a con- 

 siderable extent to furnish material for the public buildings in Wash- 

 ington City. It required but a few years, however, to demonstrate the 

 entire unfitness of this material for any sort of exposed work, and the 

 quarrying has therefore been discontinued. 



Washington Territory. — On Chuckanut Bay, adjoining Bellingham 

 Bay, in this Territory, is a very large deposit of a blue-gray Carbonifer- 

 ous sandstone that has been quarried to furnish material for the United 

 States custom-house at Portland, Oregon, and for use in other towns on 

 Puget Sound. The quarry is situated on a bluff which is represented 

 as from 50 to 150 feet in height and about a mile in length. The supply 

 of workable material is inexhaustible and it is said blocks 30 feet in 

 length can be obtained without a flaw. The quarries are so situated 

 that vessels of large size can be brought directly to the pier for load- 

 ing. 



Wisconsin. — The sandstones of this State, so far as we have had op- 

 portunity of observing, are mostly of a very light color and uninterest- 

 ing appearance, such as are not likely to ever be in demand for other 

 than local uses. Near Darlington, La Fayette County, there is stated 

 by Professor Conover to occur a large outcrop of Silurian sandstone, of 

 a brown and brick-red color passing into grayish-pink. This is regarded 

 by the above-named authority as the best-appearing stone in that part 

 of the State, though little quarried, owing to the large amount of worth- 

 less stone associated with it and the cost of transportation. The Pots- 

 dam formations in the region of Lake Superior are regarded as capable 

 of furnishing desirable sandstones, yellowish to deep brown in color. 



