Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/539

Rh Unfortunately, Dr. Hawes did not live to carry out the plans he had so carefully laid down, hut the vast amount of material he had been instrumental in bringing together remains to-day in the National Museum, a lasting monument to the industry of the man, and probably the most systematic and complete collection of its kind in any museum in the world. As now being arranged in the museum, the collection comprises some four thousand specimens of building and ornamental stone from upward of fifteen hundred quarries in the United States, together with very many from foreign localities.

The importance of such a collection can not be overestimated. Here, within the space of an hour, one can see and examine every variety of stone now quarried, and ascertain its scientific name and chemical or mineral composition, together with the exact locality whence it was derived. That such a reference collection will prove of great advantage to the country at large is evident from the fact that New England granites have been used in nearly every city of importance from Maine to California, sometimes to the almost entire exclusion of equally good material close at hand, but of whose existence or valuable qualities interested parties were ignorant. As an illustration of this, it may be stated that many of the public and private buildings of Cincinnati, Ohio, are built of Eastern granite brought by rail and water a distance of over fifteen hundred miles, while within one tenth that distance lie rocks in every respect equally good for the purpose, and that could be furnished at far less cost! From the published report of the census as it now appears, there were quarried during the year ending May 31, 1880, 115,380,113 cubic feet of building and ornamental stones, valued in the rough at $18,365,055; this being the product of 1,525 quarries representing an invested capital of $25,414,497, and affording employment during the busy season to upward of 40,000 men. The kinds of stone quarried are principally granites, limestones (including dolomite), sandstone, and slates. In value of total product, regardless of kinds, the leading States rank as follows: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Massachusetts, Illinois, New York, Maine, and Connecticut, each of these producing upward of $1,000,000 worth of material. Massachusetts and Maine produce the most granite; Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut the most sandstone; Vermont, Illinois, Ohio, and New York the most limestone, while Pennsylvania leads in the production of slate.

The larger portion of our granites are some shade of gray in color, though pink and red varieties are not uncommon. They vary in texture from very fine and homogeneous to coarsely porphyritic rocks in which the individual grains are an inch or more in length. The largest works at present in operation are at Vinalhaven, Maine. The quarries of the Bodwell Granite Company were first opened here in 1850, and the present annual product is some 217,000 cubic feet, valued at $112,000. The capabilities of these quarries may behest