BUILDING AND ORNAMENTAL STONES. 477 



All are dull red, of light and dark shades, variously spotted, necked, 

 and veined with white and gray ; none of them are as brilliant in color 

 as the French grlottcs. The variety rouge royal is very light, and some- 

 what resembles certain varieties of the Teunessee marbles, but is in- 

 ferior. The well-known "Belgian black 7 ' is of a deep black color, hard 

 and difficut to work, but takes a high polish, and is considered the best 

 of its kind now in the market. 



(3) BERMUDA. 



The building stones of Bermuda are altogether calcareous and frag- 

 mental. Although popularly known as coral limestones, they contain 

 as a rule fully as large a pro portion of shell as of coral fragments. 

 Nearly all the quarried material belongs, according to Professor Bice,* 

 to the drift sand-rock variety, i. e., rocks made up of fragments blown 

 inland from the beach and subsequently cemented by calcareous matter 

 in a crystalline or subcrystalline state. The rock varies in color and 

 texture from chalky white, fine grained, and porous (somewhat like the 

 French Caen stone), to a darker, coarser, but tough and compact form, 

 in which the individual fragments, often of a pink color, are one-fourth 

 of an inch or more in diameter. 



According to the authority above quoted the rock is usually very soft 

 and is quarried out in large blocks by means of a peculiar long-handled 

 chisel, and afterward sawn up in sizes and shapes to suit individual, 

 cases. The harder varieties, as found at Paynter's Yale and elsewhere 

 are, however, worked like "any ancient limestone or marble." 



Most of the houses of Bermuda are stated by Professor Kice to be 

 built of this soft, friable var iety, and even the roofs are covered with 

 the same material sawn into thin slabs. When covered with a coating 

 of whitewash the stone is found sufficiently durable for ordinary build- 

 ings in that climate, but if exposed to the rigors of a Xew England 

 winter it would crumble rapidly. The hard rock, such as is found at 

 Paynter's Vale and Ireland Island, " has been used in the construction 

 of the fortifications and other Government works" on the islands. " The 

 quarry of the Royal Engineers, near Elbow Bay, appears to be in 

 beach-rock." 



(4) ENGLAND. 



Bath oolite. — The well-known Bath stone or Bath oolite is a light, 

 almost white or cream-colored oolitic limestone from quarries in the . 

 Jurassic formations which extend from the coast of Dorset, in the south 

 of England, in a northeasterly direction through Somersetshire, Glou- 

 cestershire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, to Lincolnshire, to York- 

 shire^ 



In texture it is distinctly oolitic, soft, and very easy to work. Its 



* Geol. of Bermuda, Ball. 25, . U. S. Nat. Mas., 1884. 

 tHull, Building and Ornamental Stones, \). 210. 



