BUILDING AND ORNAMENTAL STONES. 485 



the Museum collections still shows the ancient carving supposed to 

 have been made upon it upwards of three thousand years ago. 



A fragment of a blue-gray hornblendic granite was also received from 

 Alexandria with that described above. Its original source is not knorcn. 



(2) BRITISH PROVINCES OF NORTH AMERICA. 



New Brunswick. — In the vicinity of St. George, Kings County, occurs 

 an inexhaustible supply of a red hornblendic intrusive granite, which is 

 beginning to be extensively worked, and which has been introduced into 

 the markets of the United States, where it is known as " Bay of Fundy 

 granite." In texture the rock is medium coarse, very like that of 

 Calais and Jonesborough, Me., from which, however, it differs in depth 

 of color and in bearing hornblende in place of mica. It is tough and 

 compact, takes a brilliant polish, and is apparently durable. An urn 

 of this material in the National Museum is one of the most beautiful 

 granite objects in the entire collection. The quarries now worked are 

 situated about 2J miles from the town of St. George, where the rock 

 occurs in rugged hills, and of varying shades of color from deep red to 

 cream color or gray, the latter colors occurring in occasional large 

 patches, 20 to 40 feet across, and of indefinite length. The quarries are 

 opened along the hillside, where the rock is very conveniently jointed for 

 getting out large blocks.* 



Nova Scotia. — Gray mica- bearing granites of apparently excellent 

 quality, and varying in texture from medium fine and homogeneous to 

 coarsely porphyritic are quarried at Shelburne, and at Purcell's Cove, 

 in Halifax County. These are exported to some extent into the United 

 States. Two 12-inch cubes are in the collection of the National Mu- 

 seum. 



(3) SCOTLAND. 



The granites brought into this country from Scotland are the coarse 

 red from Peterhead, and the gray from Aberdeen. Both are excellent 

 stones and are used very largely for monumental work, door-posts, and 

 pillars in all our cities and towns. In point of beauty they are inferior 

 to many of our native granites, but their well-established reputation 

 will probably cause their being used for many years to come. The 

 Peterhead granite is stated t to weigh 165.9 pounds per cubic foot, and 

 to be composed of quartz, orthoclase, albite, and black mica. The Aber- 

 deen granite has the same composition, excepting that its triclinic feld- 

 spar is oligoclase in place of albite, and there is sometimes present a 

 little white mica. It is of -this latter stone that the city of Aberdeen 

 is largely built. A coarse gray granite with large, well-defined porphy- 

 ritic crystals of pink orthoclase is also imported from Shap, in northern 

 England. None of these stones have any exact counterpart among the 

 granites of this country. Six small turned and polished columns of 

 these are in the National Museum. 



*Rep. of G. F. Mathew, Geol. Snrv. of Canada, 1876-'77, pp. 345-349. 

 t Building Construction, p. 20. 



