Mineral Industries and Geology of Certain Areas - Vermont Agency ...

44 REPORT OF THE VERMONT STATE GEOLOGIST. REPORT OF THE VERMONT STATE GEOLOGIST. 45
gadders. We are quarrying 40,000 feet per month. We have
the contract for furnishing the marble for the new library in
New York, which calls for 500,000 cubic feet of marble." This
company have 250 acres of marble property and is doing "considerable
prospecting by taking cores from different localities."
It also has large mills for dressing marble.
There are several other smaller but not unimportant marble
companies in the State. The demand for marble as a building
stone appears to be rapidly and largely increasing.
SLATE.—The slate industry of this State was so fully considered
in the last Rep ort* that it will not seem invidious
discrimination if little space be given to it here. For full statements
as to the quarries, methods of quarrying, geology of the
slate belt, etc., the reader is referred to the Report of 1899-1900.
For a few years the sales, and consequently the output, of
slate in Vermont diminished rather than increased, but for the
last few years this condition has been reversed and this year
nearly all the companies reporting give very encouraging
accounts of active business during the year and excellent prospects
for the immediate future. The sales of slate for iqoi were
large, amounting to $1,162,191. Besides the vigorous working
of most of the quarries in the great slate belt of Rutland
county, there has been renewed activity in the Northfield region.
There is here a fine series of deposits of black slate which
apparently only needs sufficient capital and energy to become
very productive. At present there are but two companies
engaged in the business. These are the Dole-Brill and the
Union Slate companies.
The Northfielcl slate is a good clear black which does not
fade and is of first class duality.
GR\xITE.—While, almost since it became a State, Vermont
has been famous for its marble, it has been known as a granite
producing State only during the last few years, and now it is
almost as widely and favorably known through its granite as
through its marble, and I do not think that it is too much to
say that in quality, if not in quantity, Vermont is excelled by no
Report of State Geologist, 1899-1900, pp. 17-30, figures 1-5.
other State or country in the world. Two other granite
producing regions, Maine and Massachusetts, furnish a
greater quantity, all grades being considered, but of the
finest grades of granite, such as are used in monuments,
Yermont last year sold more than twice as much as any
other State. The greater quantity sold elsewhere goes
into paving stone, foundations, etc., for which uses Vermont
sells comparatively little, while most of our granite goes into
finer work. Vermont also sells more granite in the rough to
be worked elsewhere than does any other State. When we
consider the fact that our granite deposits are scarcely touched
as yet, only a very small part of them having been quarried at
all, and that the supply is thus practically unlimited and therefore
inexhaustible, and that the demand for Vermont granite
is rapidly increasing, we easily understand that a great future
awaits this industry. The growth of the business in Barre
shows what may happen elsewhere and in many localities, for
granite is widely distributed over the State, from Derby to
Dummerston, and while much of it is unsalable, much is of the
very best quality. No red granite is found in Vermont, but we
have all shades of gray and all grades of hardness and texture.
The present capital invested and quantity and value of stone
produced is very large, but we may confidently expect that it
will soon be much larger.
The granite industry is much less concentrated in this State
than either the marble or slate, and I have found it difficult to get
at exact statements respecting it. It appears certain that not
less than $1,000,000 is invested in the business. Not less than
3,000 men are employed in quarries and cutting works, and the
output in 1901, as given by the United States Geological
Survey Report. was $124,828. Nearly all the firms report increasing
business, some of them that during the present year,
1902, the sales will be double those of any previous year.
Mr. G. I. Finlay of Columbia University has made a special
study of the Barre granite region, and it is with great satisfaction
that I am able to include Mr. Finlay's valuable paper in
this report.