Materials Capable of Being Polished.

A very pretty grey marble, streaked with white, is found in abundance at Blue Mountain in the Horse Range, where it is burnt for lime. Although very much jointed at the surface, it may improve as the quarry is developed, and I think that blocks of sufficient size to make chimney pieces, pillars, &c., could be obtained.

There is also a black limestone, with shells, somewhere near Tokomairiro, that would make a very handsome black marble. I do not know the exact locality of this limestone, and have only seen hand specimens of it.

The so-called "statuary marble"^* from the West Coast, although beautifully white, is of a totally different texture from true statuary marble, having internally a coarsely crystalline texture, which would cause it to split under the chisel, and would of course quite unfit it for statuary purposes.