372 A POPULAR TREATISE ON GEMS.
ries
in Massachusetts are at West Stockbridge, Egremont Great Barrington,
Lanesborough, New Ashford, Sheffield, and New Marlborough. In New York,
marble is quarried in large quantities at Hastings and Sing Sing, and
Dover, in Dutchess county, and the range of granular limestones extends
through Columbia, Dutchess, and Putnam counties ; and in Connecticut
the same granular limestones occur in abundance; also in New Jersey, a
few miles west of Philadelphia, and near Ilagerstown, in Maryland. The
marble quarries in Rhode Island, Eastern Massachusetts, and Maine,
furnish very fine marble, belonging to the metamorphic limestones of a
more recent date, but it is not as durable as those of an older age; it
is more friable, and has more fissures.
Bird's-eye
or encrinitar marble forms an extensive bed in the State of New York;
it is a compact crinoidal limestone, containing fragments of stems and
joints of crinoids of a bright pink, and other organic remains of a
dark color, which, on the gray ground, give a beautiful variety. A
similar limestone, susceptible of receiving a polish, occurs in the
lower bed of the Niagara limestone, at Lockport and at Becraft's
Mountain, near Hudson, where the organic remains are nearly similar to
the first. Also the Onondaga limestone affords a similar marble, and
taking a fine polish, with a much greater variety of organic remains
than either pf those just described. All these limestones compose very
thick beds, and are all suitable for ornamental purposes; they are a
very excellent and durable building-stone, and arc extensively used for
the massive and beautiful locks and piers on the Erie canal, at
Lockport, and as building-stone in Buffalo, Lockport, and Rochester,
and the city hall and court house in Chicago have been built from it;
they belong to the group of limestones called the Niagara group.
On a recent visit to Buffalo, the author's special attention
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