352 



NEW- YORK MARBLE. 



chimney-pieces of this marble in the Capitol at 

 Washington, which cost about $500 each. When 

 formed into slabs for tables, it costs from $4 to $5 

 per square foot. 



New- York abounds invaluable marbles, especial- 

 ly Dutchess and Columbia counties. Limestone 

 abounds throughout the extent of both these coun- 

 ties ; it is granular and compact, white, gray, cloud- 

 ed, striped, and nearly black. Marble is extensive- 

 ly wrought in Dover, from whence about 40,000 feet 

 of marble slabs are sent annually, which yield an 

 income of 30,000 dollars. The marble employed 

 in building the New- York Custom House is from 

 White Plains, Westchester county. It is a very 

 white, coarse-grained marble ; its durability remains 

 to be tested. Marble is also obtained from Kings- 

 bridge and Singsing, but of an inferior quality. 

 The University of the City of New- York, as well 

 as the State Prison buildings at Singsing, were 

 built with the latter, but it has every appearance of 

 being rapidly decomposed by the chemical and me- 

 chanical agents to which it is exposed. 



The Potomac marble is obtained on the banks of 

 the Potomac River, about fifty miles above the City 

 of Washington. It is what is called a breccia marble, 

 consisting of fragments, varying in size from that 

 of a grain of sand to half a foot in diameter ; and 

 their forms being angular, rhombic, rounded, oval, 

 &c, and of various colours, as white, gray, yellow, 

 reddish brown, blackish, &c, present a very beau- 

 tiful appearance when polished. The shafts of the 

 columns in the Representatives' Chamber, in the 

 Capitol of the United States, are formed of this 

 marble ; they are nineteen feet nine inches in height 

 from the base to the capital, and two feet in diame- 

 ter; some of them being composed of one entire 

 mass. Indeed, a block seventy feet long, with a 

 base eleven feet by seven, has been obtained at the 

 quarry Our limits allow no farther description of 



