THE MARBLE INDUSTRY.

Stone of one kind or another, suitable for building or other industrial use, is most abundantly distributed throughout the United States. One is apt therefore to look upon the operations of quarrying as practicable in almost any locality, and consequently to regard the industry of stone production as practically universal. This view is not far from correct when only the coarser kinds of stone are considered. Marble, however, is found in comparatively few localities, since only here and there have the metamorphosing influences of heat and pressure transformed the widely distributed limestone deposits into marble. Quarrying operations means all marble is of sufficiently good quality to justify its production for the purposes to which marble as an ornamental product is applied. Marble must fulfill certain definite conditions as to strength, color, crystalline condition, freedom from flaws, etc., and furthermore, must be fairly easy of access, before quarrying operations can be undertaken with a fair prospect of financial success.

Not only are marble and limestone very different in physical structure and purity, but the uses to which they are put are strongly contrasted, so that, even though closely related from the chemical standpoint, in that they are both carbonates of calcium or calcium and magnesium together, they have in a commercial sense almost nothing in common, except in so far as waste marble replaces ordinary limestone for such uses as burning into lime, road ballast, or blast furnace flux. In this report, therefore, ordinary limestone and marble are separately considered in so far as the uses to which they are applied are radically different.

Value of the Marble Product, By States.

The following table shows the value of the marble output, by States, for the year 1894. Inspection of this table shows that only a small number of States produce marble, while from the report on limestone it is evident that a large number of our States yield ordinary limestone in abundance.

Value of Marble Production, by States, for the year 1894.
States.	Value.	States.		Value.
California	$13,420	Pennsylvania		$50,000
Georgia	724,385	Tennessee		231,796
Idaho	3,000	Vermont		1,500,399
Maryland	175,000
New York	501,585
			Total	$3,199,585

From the foregoing table it appears that the product from Vermont, valued at $1,500,399, amounts to 47.6 per cent of the total. In the census year 1889, Vermont produced 62 per cent of the total. Large gains in production have been made during the past year in Georgia and New York. The total product in 1893 was valued at $2,411,092, so that for the marble industry as a whole there has been a gain of $788,493 in value of output for the entire country.

The following table shows the value, by States, of the marble produced during the years 1890 to 1894, inclusive:

Value of marble, by States, from 1890 to 1894.
States	1890	1891	1892	1893	1894
California	$87,030	$100,000	$115,000	$10,000	$13,420
Georgia	196,250	275,000	280,000	261,666	724,385
Idaho	-----	-----	-----	4,500	3,000
Maryland	139,816	100,000	105,000	130,000	175,000
Massachusetts	---	---	100,000	-----	-----
New York	354,197	300,000	380,000	206,026	501,585
Pennsylvania	-----	45,000	50,000	27,000	50,000
Tennessee	419,467	400,000	350,000	150,000	231,796
Vermont	2,169,560	2,200,000	2,275,000	1,621,000	1,500,399
Scattering	121,850	100,000	50,000	-----	-----
Total	$3,488.170	$3,610,000	$3,705,000	$2,411,092	$3,199,585

Marble Industry in the Various States.

The following is a consideration of the marble industry in the individual productive States:

California. -Although the output in this State increased in value from $10,000 in 1893 to $13,420 in 1894, the marble branch of the stone industry is not at present in a flourishing state, and owing to the depressed financial condition, operations have been much curtailed. It is believed, however, that with general improvement in business will come a prosperous revival of the quarrying operations throughout the State. The counties which at one time or another have produced marble are San Bernardino, Amador, Inyo, and San Luis Obispo. Most of the output has come from the first-named county.

Georgia. -The advances made in marble quarrying in Georgia during the past year are very remarkable. The value of the output in 1893 was $261,666, and in 1894, $724,385. The entire output came from Pickens County.

According to Bulletin No. 1 of the Geological Survey of Georgia, under direction of Mr. W. S. Yeates, entitled "A Preliminary Report on the Marbles of Georgia," by S. W. McCallie, assistant geologist, the quarrying of marble in this State dates back to 1840, when operations on a very small scale were undertaken near Tate. Very little was accomplished, however, until the organization of the Georgia Marble Company in 1884, with a capital of $1,500,000. There are now four flourishing firms in Pickens County, while another, operating in Cherokee County, will begin in 1895.

The marbles of Georgia follow a general line running in a northerly direction from Fannin County on the north, through Gilmer and Pickens counties, to Cherokee County on the south. "The Marietta and North Georgia Railroad runs parallel to the marble belt throughout its entire length, and at no point is the outcropping located more than 2 or 3 miles from this road." All the quarries at present operating are near the town of Tate, Pickens County.

The product of the quarries operated by the Georgia Marble Company varies somewhat in color. The Kennesaw quarry yields a limited quantity of white marble, the crystals of which are large and glistening, but very compactly united; and in addition there is a white marble clouded with light spots and lines of blue. The Cherokee quarry produces white and bluish-gray stock, both clouded with dark-blue spots. From the Creole quarries a marble having a white ground and exceedingly dark-blue mottlings is taken. This is used for monumental work and exterior decorating. A great variety of different shades of marble is to be found in the Etowah quarry, the principal colors being pink, salmon, rose, and dark green. These, with their combinations, produce very rich effects and are suitable for work in which high color and richness are desired. It finds its chief application in wainscoting, mantels, table tops, counters, panels, etc.

The following analysis was made by Jr. John C. Jackson, of Chicago:

The following tests by compression of the strength of three cubes of Georgia marble, made in 1886 by Capt. Marcus W. Lyon, United States Army, with the testing machine at Watertown Arsenal, Mass., serve to indicate the great crushing strength of this marble:

The structure of the marbles from the various quarries is essentially the same, the difference being in color only. The nonabsorbent properties are indicated by the following experiments made by Prof. J. B. Johnson, of St. Louis, Mo.:

The following data are taken from the bulletin of the Georgia Geological Survey, already referred to:

* The survey is under obligations to Prof. Charles Ferris of the Engineering department of the University of Tennessee, for valuable aid rendered in making the crushing and absorption tests.

b Gen. Q. A. Gillmer, in his report on the compressive strength of building stones of the United States, Appendix II, Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers for 1875, determined a general formula for converting the crushing strength of different cubes into each other. In applying this formula of 1 and 2 inch cubes, it is found that the crushing weight of the smaller cube should be increased by approximately one-fifth of itself in order to compare correctly the strength of the two cubes.

c Cracked on edge before bursting.

d Burst suddenly.

e Burst with explosion.

The following artificial weathering tests were made on unpolished cubes of Nos. 1, 3, and 6 and a polished cube of No. 1. They were suspended for several days in an atmosphere of hydrochloric, sulphurous, and carbonic acids.

It is noticeable that the unpolished cube of No. 1 was dissolved with considerable more readiness than the polished.

a Undetermined.

No. 1	A coarsely crystalline white marble, from the Cherokee quarry (Georgia Marble Company), Pickens County.
No. 2	A white, fine-grained marble from J. P. Harrison.s quarry, 2 miles east of Jasper.
No. 3	A coarse-grained black and white mottled marble, "Creole," of the Georgia quarries.
No. 4	A fine-grained gray marble, from the Dickey property.
No. 5	A fine-grained bluish-gray marble, from the Holt property.
No. 6	A coarse-grained flesh-colored marble, "Etowah," of the Georgia quarries.
No. 7	A coarse-grained gray marble, from the Eslinger farm.
No. 8	A coarse-grained brown marble, from the Haskins farm.
No. 9	A fine-grained light-gray marble, from the White property.
No. 10.	A fine-grained black marble, from Six Mile Station.
No. 11	A fine-grained white marble, from Fannin County.

Maryland. -The value of the marble output in this State in 1894 was $175,000; in 1893, $130,000. The industry in Maryland is limited to a number of points near Baltimore on the line of the Northern Central Railroad and all in Baltimore County. The industry has been established for many years and is in a prosperous condition.

The product is used to some extent for cemetery work, and also largely for building purposes, particularly in Baltimore, where it enters into the construction of a number of the finest structures. It has also been used in Philadelphia and in the extension of the National Capitol. The Beaver Dam Marble Company is the most important firm, and has a well-equipped plant, including the modern improvements for quarrying and sawing. The most practical test which has been made of the strength of this marble was its use as material for the Washington Monument in Washington, the highest stone structure in the world.

New York. -A very striking advance in production was made in New York during 1894, name, from a valuation of $206,926 in 1893 to $501,585 in 1894. The increase was due to very largely increased operations at Tuckahoe. The productive counties are St. Lawrence, Westchester, Columbia, and Warren.

The color of the St. Lawrence County marble varies from white to dark blue and green and mixtures of these shades, producing in these cases a mottled appearance. The marble is adapted to monumental and building purposes, but the greater part of the product of 1889 was used for the latter purpose. This stone, while too coarsely crystalline for fine carving, scroll work, or tracing, forms a fine contrast with the polished surface. It weighs 174 pounds to the cubic foot, and has a crushing strength of 12,000 pounds to the inch.

The product from Pleasantville is called, from its appearance, "snow-flake marble," and is a dolomite, as is evident from the following analysis made at Columbia College:

This marble is especially adapted for use in the preparation of carbonic acid. Its weight per cubic foot is 180 pounds. The Tuckahoe marble was used for building, macadamizing roads, and for the preparation of soda water. Like the Pleasantville marble, it is a dolomite.

The product of Warren County, which comes from Glens Falls and its vicinity, consists of black marble, which is generally used for tiling and to some extent for other kinds of interior decoration, soda-water fountains, clock frames, etc. The stone is quite hard, and is quarried by light blasting, and some of it, owing to the looseness of the beds, can be removed by ordinary tools; the rougher stone is extensively burned into lime.

At Hudson, in Columbia County, and at Catskill, across the river in Greene County, are quarries of what is known as "shell marble," largely made up of fossil remains. The stone is so irregular that quarrying is largely done by blasting. It is of a dull, brownish color, and presents a beautiful appearance in finished surfaces; but owing to its character it can not now receive the fine finish given to other more perfectly metamorphosed marbles.

The product from the Tuckahoe quarries is now largely used for building, and a still further increase in production is looked for during the year 1895.

Oregon. -In Douglas County several thousand dollars. worth of marble was produced in 1894, most of the material being used for cemetery purposes. The Variety Marble Company, of Roseburg, is the principal producer. More extensive operations are predicted for 1895.

Tennessee. -The marble output of Tennessee increased from a valuation of $150,000 in 1893, to $231,796 in 1894. The industry has unquestionably suffered from the hard times, although evidently less in 1894 than in 1893. It comes mainly from Knox, Loudon, and Hawkins counties, although a small amount is produced in Hamblen, Blount, and Jefferson counties. The marble region is thus seen to be in the eastern part of the State, running in a northeasterly direction from Loudon County at the south to Hawkins County at the northeast. The total value of the marble produced in 1880 was $173,600. The marble industry in this State is in a reasonably flourishing condition.

The marble in Tennessee is in general easily quarried, and this fact has caused a number of property owners in the past to undertake quarrying operations on a small scale. The methods of quarrying are generally somewhat crude, and only a few channelers and other improvements in quarry machinery are in use.

Six marble-producing concerns have within a few years united, forming a combination known as the Tennessee Producers. Marble Company, the object of which is to maintain prices and carry on business more economically.

Tennessee marble presents much variety of color, and its great beauty is well known. It is especially well adapted for purposes of interior decoration in buildings and for furniture tops, but the amount devoted to the latter purpose is much less than it was a few years ago.

The processes of metamorphosis have in much of this marble stopped short of the obliteration of fossil remains, the outlines of which are very plainly marked and present a pleasing variety in the surface of the polished slab. The colors run from a very light pink through various shades to a chocolate brown and a mixed brown, white and pink.

The product of Hawkins County is highly esteemed, and its price is almost twice that of the product of Knox or Loudon County. As shown by the numerous outcrops of marble in this State, it disintegrates somewhat under the influence of atmosphere agencies, but this does not detract from its adaptability for interior decoration, to which it is largely applied.

Some of the finishing mills in the State are well equipped and operated in a thoroughly modern way. The average cost per cubic foot of producing the marble output of Tennessee in 1889 was 85.1 cents. Of this amount 80.8 per cent was paid for labor involved in taking marble from the quarry and putting it into the shape in which it was sold. Cost of transportation by wagon and railroad from the quarry to the mill is in many cases quite a serious item of expense.

Vermont. -The value of the marble output in 1893 was $1,621,000; the year 1894 shows a falling off to $1,500,399. This decrease is entirely due to the prevailing financial depression, and with the return of prosperous times the growth of the industry will proceed as steadily as it has done in the past.

The producing counties are, in the order of their importance, Rutland, Bennington, Franklin, and Addison. These counties are all in the western part of the State, and, interrupted only by Chittenden County, extend from the Dorset quarries in the southwest corner to the Champlain marbles at Swanton, in the extreme northern part. The quarries now operated are found in or near the towns of Manchester, Dorset, East Dorset, Wallingford, Rutland, West Rutland, Proctor, Pittsford, Brandon, Fair Haven, Middlebury, North Ferrisburg, and Swanton. Abandoned quarries are found all along the railroad line from Dorset to Middlebury. Most of the quarries are near railroad lines, but in some cases it is necessary to haul by wagon to the nearest railroad station. The longest distance of such transportation is 7 miles.

The marble lies in irregular beds, extending north and south, and having a slight dip toward the west, but at West Rutland the angle is very much increased, amounting to 80°, and the marble is worked to a depth of 300 feet. In most cases the upper layers are of little value, and the marble can only be used for purposes requiring rough stone, regardless of composition. Ten or twelve feet of surface rock must be thrown away before sound material is reached.

There is considerable variety in the color as well as in the texture of the stone. The pure white marble is rare, occurring in layers of very limited extent. Most of the stone is of a bluish-gray tone, and presents a mottled or clouded appearance, resulting from a more or less intimate mixture of blue and white. In some cases the blue is so predominant that the marble is known as "blue marble," and in cases where the blue is particularly pronounced it is called "extra dark blue." The pure white statuary marble is generally found at considerable depth. There is, however, no decided regularity in the relative arrangement of the different colors. The following analyses made at Yale University for the Columbian Marble Company may be regarded as representative of the marbles of the colors named:

The stone weighs on an average 170 pounds to the cubic foot, although it sometimes reaches 180 pounds.

Methods of Quarrying and Manufacturing Marble.

The following description of methods of quarrying and manufacturing is taken from the writer.s report on marble for the Eleventh Census:

Quarrying.

The method of quarrying is essentially the same in most marble quarries. With fine marble, blasting seems to be entirely out of the question, because of injury to the stone, which has been amply proved by past experiments in Italy. This injury has not always been apparent in freshly quarried stone, but has been revealed years after by disintegration. It has already been stated that the marble at Swanton, Vt., and a few quarries in other States, is quarried by the Knox system of blasting; but the product is not used for purposes which would be injuriously affected by blasting, and, furthermore, the character of the stone in such cases admits of the application of this method. Experiments in blasting marble have also been recently tried in California, but the results have not yet been made public. A spot for opening a quarry is selected with the greatest care. If the surface indications are not sufficient to determine the quality of the underlying marble, it becomes necessary to drill a hole to a greater or less depth into the body of the stone. This is accomplished by means of an ordinary diamond drill for prospecting; that is, a hollow tool cutting a circle and leaving a core, which is taken out when a proper depth is reached. Lengths of 10 or 12 feet are thus frequently taken out without flaws. If the core presents satisfactory indications, the surface material is stripped by blasting, so as to make an opening for the quarry. Derricks are then placed in position, and channelers, drills, and gadders commence operating upon the comparatively level floor secured by the operations of stripping. A channeler then cuts two grooves or channels across the grain of the stone the width of the channeler apart (about 5 feet). The stone thus separated from the rest is called the key course. This is cut across at intervals to the same depth as the long channels, namely, the thickness of the bed operated upon. The key coarse is thus cut into blocks, which are held to the fixed marble only on the under side. To separate the blocks from the quarry, two different processes are in use. According to one of these, a block, called the "key block" is blasted out, destroying it, but also separating it at the bottom, thus giving space for operating upon the adjacent block to be taken out entire and in sound condition. Instead of blasting, the key block may be loosened at the bottom by means of wedges driven into the channels at one side and one end. A ring fastened into the center of the block forms a means of attachment to the derrick, which then lifts it from the floor. In the latter method more time is consumed, but the key block is saved. After the key block is removed, space sufficient for the introduction of the gadder is secured. The gadder, similar to the drill, bores horizontal holes 6 inches apart into the adjacent black at the bottom. Iron wedges, known as "gadding pins," are then driven into the holes, thus separating the block at the bottom. In order to avoid breaking a block at the edges the pins are a foot or more in length. When the key course has been removed, several courses parallel to it are channeled out and removed in a similar manner. The channelers require two men, a runner and his helper, and will cut 75 channel feet per day to a depth of about 5 feet.

The drills operate by striking rapid blows, and the diamond borer cuts by revolving, the cutting edge consisting of diamonds set into the end. The underlying marble is cut into successive floors, as in the case described, thus gradually sinking below the surface, until, as in the Rutland and Proctor quarries, depths of 200 to 300 feet have been reached. Steam is commonly employed in running the quarry machinery, but in some cases compressed air is used, and hoisting is done by derricks. The usual size of blocks taken out is 4 feet by 4 feet 6 inches, but for special purposes considerably large blocks are frequently removed.

Manufacturing.

If the marble quarried as above is to be sold in sawed or in finished condition the blocks are transported to the mills, where they are sawed into slabs of various thicknesses. The saws consist of strips of steel fastened to an oscillating frame. The cutting material is sand, which, mixed with water, continually flows over the block and into the cuts made by the saws, and is fed upon the block either by hand or automatically. In the automatic process of feeding the sand is first delivered from a hopper into a well conveniently located in the mill; from this the mixture of water and sand is pumped through a main pipe connected with various branches, which delivers the contents upon the blocks of stone.

After sawing, the blocks or slabs are placed upon a rubbing bed, consisting of a circular iron disk revolving horizontally and continually supplied with the same mixture of sand and water used in sawing. A rather smooth but dull surface is thus secured, and the stone is then ready for decorative work or for carving and polishing.

The polishing of large surfaces is accomplished by means of a buffer, which consists of a rapidly revolving wheel covered with flannel and charged with a so-called putty powder, and frequently with a mixture of putty and oxalic acid. This wheel is capable of universal horizontal movement while revolving, so that it may reach all parts of the slab. Much of the polishing in Vermont mills is necessarily done by hand on account of the delicate nature of the work, owing to the intricacies of surface resulting from carving. In Tennessee mills, where large plain slabs for wainscoting and partitions are polished, the practice of machine polishing is much more general.

The light caring, or "skin work," as it is called, is largely done in the old-fashioned way, with mallet and hand-cutting tool; but a recently patented pneumatic tool, delivering a large number of light blows per second, is now being introduced. This is held in the hand and moved along the outline to be cut into the stone. Its work is very rapid, and it appears to be gaining in favor. It is used not only for the softer kids of stone, but also for granite.

In the preparation of stone for architectural designs, such as moldings, cornices, etc., planers similar to iron planers are used. Monumental urns and turned architectural work are produced by means of lathes, which are used both for cutting and polishing the various forms.

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