field museum of natural history 
Hall 67. 
MARBLES AND BUILDING STONES. 
This hall contains a collection of the best known foreign and 
domestic marbles in the form of polished slabs. The names 
given on the labels are those by which the stones are com- 
monly known, and in general refer to the color and markings of 
the stone rather than to the composition or the locality where it 
is quarried. Besides the more prominent groups in this collec- 
tion which are mentioned, there are various smaller series and 
individual specimens of interest which will be encountered. The 
series of marbles from the United States includes all the most 
widely used American marbles. These are principally from 
Vermont, Georgia and Tennessee. The Vermont marbles are 
fine textured and range in color from pure white through gray 
to black. The coarsely crystalline, brilliant marbles from Geor- 
gia run from white to pink. It must not be thought from 
the appearance of this case that colored marbles such as appear 
in the collection from foreign localities do not exist in the United 
States. Deposits are known but for various reasons remain un- 
worked. A collection of the mottled red dolomites, the 
“Winooski Marbles,’' which are quarried in the vicinity of Swan- 
ton, Vermont, presents a large number of peculiar patterns. 
A collection of Norwegian and one of Greek marbles illus- 
trates the various breccia patterns of marbles, as nearly all 
forms, from a plain marble conglomerate through various phases 
of alteration until the brecciation is wholly obliterated, are 
present. 
The series of French marbles shown is exceptional in size and 
in beauty and variety of the individual marbles. 
Examples of many of the marbles used in the ornamenta- 
tion of houses and public buildings may be recognized in this 
case. The names upon the specimen labels of this series are in 
large part descriptive, so that the collection serves to illustrate 
the class names dependent upon color and markings which are 
applied to the more ornamental varieties of marbles from all 
countries. 
A series of marbles from Great Britain presents a variety of 
patterns of agreeable texture as well as some unusual markings. 
