1885.) The Winooski or Wakefield Marble of Vermont. 133 
Lake Champlain. This bay is several miles in length and width 
and the marble crops out in cliffs from one hundred to two hun- 
dred feet high on both sides and forms islands in its midst. The 
supply is practically unlimited, and so located that huge blocks 
can be separated from the beds in the quarry, and by the same der- 
rick which lifts them from these beds they may be placed in canal- 
boats or barges which may convey them by lake, canal and river 
either to New York or Montreal. In some parts of the cliffs the 
strata are easily separable, in other parts less easily, but almost 
anywhere large blocks, which prove sound and perfect through- 
out, may be obtained. 
Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of this marble is 
the wonderful variety of shade and general appearance which it 
presents, 
Not only may slabs which are quite unlike each other be ob- 
tained from a block as it is sawn parallel with the stratification or 
transverse to it, any variation in the direction of the saws giving 
variety in the slabs; but even the opposite surfaces of the same 
slab may differ greatly. The rock in some of the layers is a 
more or less complete breccia, white or light-colored fragments 
being enclosed in a dark red paste. These fragments are of all 
sizes from those several inches long and wide to those no larger 
than the head ofa pin. In some cases several adjacent bits were, 
when first held in the paste, one large piece, and subsequently 
broken, as the fractured edges of each exactly correspond to 
those of the pieces next it. The brecciated structure is conspi- 
cuously perfect in some blocks and quite imperfect in others, and 
it finally passes into what was evidently a pasty mass of nearly 
uniform fineness before consolidation took place. Some of the 
beds appear to have been much more thoroughly worked over, 
and the materials more completely ground and mixed than 
others, and the different varieties are in part due to this. 
While but few colors are seen in the different layers, neverthe- 
less these are mingled in such varying proportions as to produce 
unlimited diversity. Shades of red are especially abundant, so 
that almost every conceivable tint is found; less common are 
green, chiefly in olive shades, drab and rarely yellow, all mingled 
more or less abundantly with white. The different specimens 
may conveniently, though without absolute exactness, be arranged 
in several series. One of these would embrace those slabs in 
