80 
[ASSEMBLV 
I. GRANITE. 
This rock occurs abundantly in New- York, Westchester and Putnam 
counties. 
It presents all varieties of texture, from a very coarse grained rock, 
to one almost perfectly compact. In colour it varies as much as in tex- 
ture. It is white, red, gray, yellowish and bluish-gray, according to the 
colour of the minerals forming it. The colour of the feldspar usually 
determines that of the mass. It occurs in beds, in veins, in interstrati- 
fied masses, and in knots, knobs, and protruding masses, in which no 
connection with veins or beds have been traced. The more common 
mode of its occurrence is in beds, 10 to 100 feet thick, interstratified 
with gneiss. Some of the granite is too coarse for use as a building 
material. Some is too compact and hard, being in fact, eurite; others 
are well adapted for building. Different localities show a great variety 
in strength, and in the ease or difficulty of dressing, as well as in the 
ease of quarrying and the magnitude of the blocks that can be procured. 
In the geological report of last year, it was mentioned that many places 
would undoubtedly be found in the Highlands, where line quarries would 
be opened, and furnish " building materials of the best quality, and 
which would endure the changes of our variable climate for ages, without 
decay or disintegration." The investigations of the past season, have ve- 
rified the prediction, that such localities might be found. The materials 
are of the best quality, easily quarried in large blocks, suitable for columns, 
cornices, &c. easily dressed, enduring as time, as the naked crags them- 
selves will testify; and several of the localities, which were unknown to 
their o^vners, are so convenient to water transport that the blocks can 
be swung directly on board vessels in the Hudson, by means of cranes. 
When we consider the value attached to the quarries in Maine, Massa- 
chusetts and Connecticut, where, in most places, it is necessary to haul 
the stone, either on a common road, or construct a rail-way to navigable 
water, a distance from half a mile to six or seven miles, and observe that 
notwithstanding all these disadvantages, the great outlay of capital, and 
the distance to a market, that they make it a profitable business, we 
may begin to appreciate the importance of having inexhaustible quanti- 
ties of materials, as good, as beautiful, as durable, and as easily quarried 
and dressed, on our own waters, within forty or sixty miles of the city 
of New- York, and so convenient to shipment, that no rail-roads and 
hauling are required. In order that the reader may be able to judge of 
the value attached to the quarries in Maine, I may be permitted to quote 
a portion of Dr. Jackson's Second Annual Report, on the Geology of 
Maine. " Many of the Maine quarries can furnish regular dimension 
