The Arkansas Stone and Building Industry in 1882

Excerpts from

Mineral Resources of the United States, 1882

J. S. Powell, Director, Department of the Interior, United States Geological Survey
, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C., 1883.

Excerpts from the chapters on 1) "Structural Materials," and 2) "The Useful Minerals of the United States":

"The division of the Tenth Census charged with the collection of statistics of building stone obtained returns from 1,525 quarries in the United States, having an invested capital of $25,414,497, and producing during the year ending May 31, 1880, 115,380,133 cubic feet of stone, valued at $18,365,055. In value of total product, the leading States rank as follows: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Massachusetts, Illinois, New York, Maine, and Connecticut; each of these States producing upwards of $1,000,000 worth of stone. Vermont, Illinois, Ohio, Iowa, Indiana, New York, and Missouri, in the order named, produce the most marble and limestone; Ohio, New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, the greater part of the sandstone; Massachusetts and Maine quarry the most granite and other siliceous crystalline rocks; while Pennsylvania leads in product of slate."

 

ARKANSAS

Reported by John C. Smock.

Ores, minerals, and mineral substances of industrial importance, which are at present mined.

Limestone: Black, for ornamental inside uses, Independence county. Oölitic limestone near Batesville takes good polish.

Marble: Carroll county; Newton county; Searcy county; Marion county; Van Buren county. In Marion county, encrinital limestone of Devonian age.

Millstone, Buhrstone: Independence county; Izard county; Lawrence county.

Novaculite - Oilstone: Several localities in Pulaski county; in Hot Springs county known as "Ouachita oilstone," at Whetstone mountain.

Ores, minerals, and mineral substances of industrial importance and known occurrence, but which are not at present mined.

Granite: Fourche cove, Pulaski county.

Sandstone: Franklin county; Searcy county, Van Buren county.

Serpentine: Saline county.

Slate: Sevier county.