STOCKBRIDGE MARBLE. 



351 



lence and durability. Some of the Vermont mar- 

 bles are as white as the Carrara or statuary marble, 

 receive a fine polish, and are extensively wrought 

 for tombstones, chimney jambs, window caps, and 

 other purposes. 



The Stockbridge marble is well known, as the 

 City Hall of New- York is built of it. It is a pure 

 white, moderately fine grained, and very durable. 

 The Lanesborougli and Sheffield marble is very sim- 

 ilar, and from the Sheffield quarries the marble is 

 obtained which is now employed in the erection of 

 the Girard College at Philadelphia. " A visit to 

 this quarry," says Professor Hitchcock, *' will give 

 one, perhaps, the best idea of the value and extent 

 of the Berkshire marbles, and, at the same time, of 

 the power which the arts give to man over nature. 

 To see masses more than fifty feet long, and six or 

 eight feet thick, split out by the apparently feeble 

 means employed, makes a strong impression on the 

 mind, and recalls the history of the enormous 

 blocks of stone quarried and removed by the pyra- 

 mid builders of antiquity." It ma}^ with safety be 

 said, that no marbles in the United States exceed 

 in elegance and durability those of Berkshire coun- 

 ty. The value of all the marble now exported from 

 that county cannot be less than $70,000 annually, 

 and the beds are inexhaustible. 



A very beautiful marble is obtained from near 

 New-Haven (Connecticut), called the verd antique 

 when it contains green colours, though its predom- 

 inant colour is gray or blue, richly variegated with 

 veins or clouds of white, black, or green, the last 

 of which sometimes pervades a large mass. Some 

 specimens exhibit clouds of a brilliant orange or 

 gold yellow, associated with green serpentine and 

 dove-coloured limestone. The black clouds and 

 spots are occasioned by magnetic oxide of iron and 

 chromate of iron, and green and yellow serpentine 

 is also disseminated among it. There are fouf 



