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No. 3.— THE SERPEXTIXKS OK VERMONT. 
BY EDWARD WIGGLESWORTH. 
Intuodixtr).\. 
Although it has long been known that there is a considerable 
development of serpentine in Vermont, no special study has ever been 
made of its nature and distribution as a whole, since the report on the 
"Geology of Vermont" by Hitchcock (1), published in ISOl. There 
are, however, reports on the asbestos-bearing serpentine in the north- 
ern part of the State by C. H. Richardson (2) and V. F. Marsters (3). 
In the summer of 1912 an attempt was made by the writer to visit 
all the occurrences of this rock so far reported in the State, and to col- 
lect material for a petrographic examination at a later date. The 
results of this study are briefly given in the following pages. 
Distribution. 
The occurrences in Vermont form one part of the fairly continuous 
band of serpentine which exists in the eastern part of the United States 
and Canada. This band extends with many interruptions from 
Alabama, parallel to the Appalachian structure, as far as the Gaspe 
Peninsula, and even into Newfoundland. The rock in Vermont is 
therefore only a small section of a very extensive band. 
There are over twenty localities from which serpentine has been 
reported. These localities align themselves in a direction approxi- 
mately north and south, and thus correspond to the general trend of 
structure in the State. The line thus formed lies on the east side of 
the axis of the Green Mountains, and therefore in the eastern half of 
the State. The individual occurrences \ary greatly in size, some being 
two or three miles long w^hile others are not more than two hundred 
feet. The largest are found in the northern part of the State where 
the band seems to split up or widen out, so that in some places two 
nearly parallel ridges are seen.' This more extensive development of 
serpentine in the northern part of the State is interesting as it is not 
very much further north, in Quebec, that this same serpentine band 
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