THE geographical position of Rutland county begins on the east of the crest of the Green Mountain Range, and extends west to Lake Champlain and the State of New York, with Addison county on the north and Bennington county on the south; it has an area of about one thousand square miles. It has an elevated surface, mountainous on the east, with numerous foot hills and scattered spurs of the Green Mountains -- a member of the Appalachian system which extends from Quebec to Alabama. The soil is fertile and the surface is drained by Black, White, Quechee and Pawlet Rivers, and Otter Creek.

      The geological age of the rock formation of Western Vermont has been the subject of much discussion and controversy by many eminent geologists, particularly in relation to the shale, slate and limestone formations (including marble), that are exposed along the valleys and lower portions of the district embraced by Rutland and adjoining counties. The order of the various formations along Lake Champlain was determined as early as 1842, by Messrs. HALL, EMMONS, MATHER and VANNUXEM, of the New York Geological Survey. 

      These formations stand in the following order: Potsdam sandstone followed by calciferous, Chazy and Trenton limestones, and the latter by Hudson River slate. But with regard to the age and order of the rock lying east of the Champlain Group, a diversity of opinions have been entertained by a number of prominent geologists.

      Professor EMMONS, in his report of the New York survey, advanced his theory of the "Taconic System," claiming "that the range of mountains extending from Addison county in Vermont south along the western borders of Massachusetts and Connecticut, and also the limestone and marble on the east of the range, belonged to a formation older than the Potsdam, but younger than the primitive rocks"; but he was opposed in his views by Professors HALL and MATHER, and Professor ROPERS, of the Pennsylvania survey, who regarded the limestone and slate of the Taconic Range as belonging to the Champlain Group. 

      The geological reports of Vermont seem to leave the age of these rocks undetermined. In 1866 Sir William LOGAN, of the geological survey of Canada, extended his "Quebec Group" so as to include the rocks of the Taconic Group of EMMONS.

      Of the various theories set up to fix the geological age of these rocks, it was left for an unpretentious Vermont citizen to furnish the means of determining their geological horizon, viz.: Rev. Augustus WING, a graduate of Amherst College of the class of 1835. He was not a professional geologist, but became deeply interested in the science, and a large portion of the latter part of his life was spent in studying the rocks of Western Vermont, with a view to determining the age of the marble formation. "Knowing," says Professor DANA, "that fossils were the only sure criterion of geological age, he searched and found them, and thus reached safe conclusions."  ". . . He accomplished vastly more for the elucidation of the age of Vermont rocks than had been done by the Vermont geological survey."  ". . . His discoveries shed light not on these rocks alone, but also on the general geology of New England and Eastern North America."

      Mr. WING was preparing, at the request of Professor DANA, an account of his discoveries for the Journal of Science, but died in January, 1876, before it was finished. After his death his note-book and papers relating to this subject were sent to Professor DANA, who compiled them for publication in the Journal of Science, 1877, pp. 332 and 405, vol. XIII. Mr. WING's general conclusion has been established: It is "that the limestone formation of Western New England, containing the marble, is the same as the calciferous, Chazy and Trenton of the Champlain Group (lower Silurian), and that the slates of the Taconic Range overlie the limestone and belong to the Hudson River and Utica formations of the New York reports." 

      The perplexing question as to the geological age of the limestone, including marble and slate, lying east of the Taconic Range, has, through the discoveries of Mr. WING, been answered, and the answer has been confirmed by the more recent discoveries of fossils by Professors DANA, DWIGHT and WHITEFIELD. "The Taconic System of EMMONS finally disappears from American geology, while the Quebec of Logan is reduced to a subordinate member of the limestone group, if its existence is to be recognized at all in Western New England."

      The following are the names of the prominent peaks of the Green Mountains within the limits of Rutland county, with their location and heights: 

      The following peaks of the Taconic Range are within the county:

Name	Situation	Miles Long	Miles Wide
Austin Lake	Poultney and Wells	5.00	1.50
Bombazine Lake	Castleton	8.00	2.50
Fox Pond	Wallingford	0.75	0.50
Hortensia Lake	Hubbardton	3.00	0.50
Jackson's Pond	Mount Holly	1.00	0.50
Little Pond	Wells	1.00	0.50
Spectacle Pond	Wallingford	2.00	1.00
Tinmouth Pond	Tinmouth	1.50	0.50

      More detailed descriptions of these mountains, lakes and ponds have been given in Chapter II.

      Order of Rocks, West to East. -- Commencing at the most westerly part of the county, a narrow strip of calciferous sandrock passes through the towns of Benson and Westhaven; its general strike is north 10° east, dip, 3° to 15° east, forming the shore and eastern boundary of Lake Champlain. A very thin stratum of Trenton limestone lies parallel to the sandrock on the east, with the same strike, with a dip at Westhaven of 5° east.

      Next in order eastward comes quite a thick belt of Hudson River shales and slates. At Westhaven post-office it has a strike of north 10° east; at north part of Benson, north and south, with a dip varying from 22° to 50° east. The slate grows thinner on the south where it enters New York State.

      The next neighbors on the east are strata of Trenton limestone of the Champlain Group, and talcoid schist. The limestone is thickest in the south part of Westhaven; grows thinner as it goes northward, and finally disappears in the central part of Benson. The talcoid schist shows itself in the western port of Fairhaven, extending northerly, passing through the easterly part of Westhaven and southeast corner of Benson and southwest corner of Hubbardton, entering Sudbury near the west line, and disappears in the northwest corner of that town.

      The next rock in the eastward geographical order, are the slates belonging to the Hudson River and Utica Group. (Not the same as the Georgia slates of the northern part of the State, as given in the Geological Reports of Vermont.) This slate stratum constitutes one of the largest rock formations in the county, and ranks second in economic value, not only of the county, but of the State. It enters this county from New York at the southwest corner, extending north through the western part of Pawlet, Wells and Middletown, Poultney, Hubbardton, western part of Sudbury, where it grows thinner, entering Addison county like a wedge, and pinches out in the town of Cornwall. The direction of the stratum from the south is north from 10° to 20° east, having a stratum dip of from 10° to 40° east. The cleavage dip is generally greater than that of the stratum and ranges from 10°o to 40° east. The slate on the west side of Lake Bombazine has a cleavage dip conformable with that of the stratum, a circumstance of very rare occurrence in Western Vermont. (These slates will be further considered a little further on, under the head of economical geology.)

      The next formation is the "Eolian limestone" of the Vermont Reports and belongs to the calciferous, Chazy and Trenton of the Champlain Group (Lower Silurian), as previously stated. This limestone is overlaid by the Hudson River slate and talcoid schist. In the valleys much of the overlying rock strata has been removed, as well as many of the anticlinals of the limestone, exposing their upturned edges. This limestone stratum in Addison county, where it apparently begins, is of great thickness. Extending southward, it becomes divided in Cornwall by overlying slate and schist, into two nearly parallel ridges; the western range continues south, passing the eastern parts of Shoreham and Orwell, and the western parts of Whiting, Sudbury and Hubbardton, where it terminates. The western range enters Rutland county from the north, passing through Brandon to the south line of Pittsford, where it becomes again divided into three thinner parallel ranges, by quartzite and overlying talcoid schist. The western branch terminates near the south: line of Rutland; the middle and eastern ranges, continue southward through Rutland, Clarendon, Tinmouth, Wallingford and Danby, to the southern limit of the county. The strike is nearly north and south. The dip is very irregular, ranging from 10° east up to 90°. Much of the limestone of Rutland county is highly metamorphic and includes the larger part of the celebrated marbles of Vermont, of which we shall speak more particularly in later pages.

      The formation east of the limestone consists in the main of quartz, schist and gneiss, the later having the greatest thickness of any strata within the county. The rock strata of the following towns consist almost entirely of quartzite and gneissoid formation, viz.: Mount Tabor, Mount Holly, eastern part of Wallingford, Shrewsbury, Mendon, Sherburne, Chittenden and Pittsford. Nearly all of these towns are situated within the range of the Green Mountains, and include Shrewsbury, Pico and Killington Peaks. The strike and dip of this formation varies greatly; the strike ranging from north 75° west, to north 70° east, and the dip ranging from 80° west, to 80° east.

      The series of rocks of the county have thus been presented in a cursory manner and without attempting to give a detailed account of the many modified conditions and characteristics that are to be found in every one of the formations. Very few of the rocks contain fossils, on account of the metamorphism to which they have been subjected. It will be observed that all of the strata dip to the east at various angles, excepting the gneiss in some locations. Many of the localities have been subjected to greater disturbance than others, as indicated by their folded and contorted conditions.
 
 

      The material of the limestone formation of Western Vermont was deposited in the shallow and quiet waters of the ancient Silurian sea, while it was protected by an eastern submerged barrier of archean islands and reefs, allowing the water to become clear and favorable for the life and growth of crinoids, corals and mollusks. The period during which this and other deposits were made was a long one -- sufficiently long to allow a deposit known as the Lower Silurian to form to the depth of 12,000 feet. While this enormous deposit was accumulating there were short periods of disturbance, causing the waters to become turbid and the bottom to become covered with mud  -- a material constituting the slates of this period.

      This long period of rest terminated over Western New England at the close of the Lower Silurian period -- not suddenly, but by a slow and gradual change resulting from subterranean movements and causing an up-lift of the sea bottom and metamorphism. In the language of DANA: "During Paleozoic time, previous to the epoch of revolution, the Green Mountain area had been a region of accumulating limestone, sand-beds and mud-beds, and these lay in horizontal strata, making a series of thickness not less than twelve thousand feet, the actual amount not yet ascertained. Here the rock-making over the region ended. Next came the upturning, in which the same rocks were displaced, folded and crystallized, and the Green Mountain region made dry land."

      The agencies necessary to produce the metamorphism of the rock are principally heat at a low temperature, between 500 degrees and 1,200 degrees F., and water or moisture in varying quantities, operating through long periods of pressure. The average amount of moisture contained in uncrystalline rocks, as limestone, sandstone, shales, etc., exceeds three per cent; even at 2.67 per cent. the amount would correspond with two quarts per cubic foot of rock. This moisture existed in the sedimentary formation, being oceanic water carrying many minerals, as sodium chloride (common salt), potassium, and magnesium chlorides, magnesium bromide and sulphate, calcium carbonate and sulphate, etc. It is through these agencies that crystalline rocks are produced. Sedimentary beds, that is, those made originally from mud, clay, etc., have been changed into slate, calcareous, talcose and mica schists, gneiss, and even granite and limestone into statuary marble.

      In the case of statuary marble, the heat was sufficient to obliterate the fossils which the limestone formerly contained. The geological time of the disturbance that produced this change of character, or metamorphism, in the rocks, was at the close of the Lower and beginning of the Upper Silurian eras. "Some of the characteristics of the force engaged in the extensive up-lifts and flexures of the rocks, are as follows: The force acted at right angles to the course of the flexures. -- The force acted from the direction of the ocean. -- The force was slow in action and long continued. It is not known that this disturbance affected the Appalachians farther southward than New Jersey." [Dana]

      The foregoing summary of the rock formation of Rutland county does not account for the diversified and uneven surface that exists today, consisting, as it does, of mountains, hills and deep valleys. We have evidence that during what is called the Champlain Period, a subsidence occurred, extending over the whole of North America. The ocean water covered a large portion of New England and extended up the St Lawrence River nearly to the great lakes, and over the Champlain and Hudson River valleys. The depth to which the land was submerged was not uniform. "This arm of the sea, nearly 500 feet deep at Montreal and from 300 to 400 in Lake Champlain, was frequented by whales and seals; their remains have been found near Montreal, and a large portion of the skeleton of a whale was dug up on the borders of Lake Champlain, sixty feet above its level, or 150 feet above the ocean. Sea-border formation can be traced along the shores of Lake Champlain at varying heights up to 393 feet, containing marine shells to a height of 325." [Dana]
 
 

      During what is termed the Glacial, or Drift Period, North America experienced an extremely cold climate, and ice-cap extended from the northern regions as far south as the Ohio River, covering the whole of New England. This ice-cap was of immense thickness, and it is claimed by many eminent geologists that this sheet of ice moved in a southerly direction from the colder and higher latitudes of the North, to the lower and warmer climate of the South, carrying along with it masses of rock at its under surface, scratching and tearing away the surface over which it traveled, grinding off the tops of mountains, scoring out the valleys and transporting its wreck of rock material to lower and warmer latitudes, where it was left, forming terminal moraines of rounded boulders and coarse gravel; and as the climate became gradually warmer, the southern border of the ice-sheet gradually receded towards the North, thus distributing the broken, rounded and ground-up rock material over a large portion of the surface of the continent, leaving grooves and scratches on the surface of the rocks, seemingly as evidence of the processes and agents employed ; which cut through and removed many of the rock strata to great depths, leaving the upturned edges of the lower formations exposed, as can be seen in many places in every valley of Rutland county.

      It is generally admitted that valleys are mainly due to erosion, the erosive agents being guided either by original depressions in the ground, or by geological structure, or both. A fundamental law of erosion is, that harder rocks resist decay arid denudation more, while softer rocks resist it less and are more easily abraded. That glacial action has had much to do with erosion is evident; but we are inclined to think that the Glacial Theory spreads itself out too thin (if the expression may be used) to account fully for all the erosive effects produced during the Ice Age. The old school of geologists credit the glaciers with a limited amount of erosive work; also for the distribution of many boulders through the agency of icebergs, which are the offspring of glaciers; but they restrict their erosive action to mountainous districts and adjacent valleys, and hold that the large erratic boulders, as well as the smaller ones, which are found scattered over the surface of the country, were transported by icebergs and field-ice to which they were attached from northern seas, at a time when the continent was submerged beneath the ocean. The entire Green Mountain range was covered, and Mount Washington to within 500 feet of the top. Scratches and boulders have been found 6,000 feet above the sea, on the White Mountains. The writer has a boulder (quartzite) in his collection which he brought from the top of Mount Killington, a height of over 4,300 feet; its longest and shortest circumferential measurements are thirty-one and twenty-seven inches, respectively. It surely must have been "up-hill work" for a glacier to have left it there!

      At the time of the greatest submergence of the continent, enormous fields of ice, as well as icebergs, must have moved from northern latitudes, impelled by the wind and ocean currents. These would have passed over the whole of New England, except the higher parts of the White Mountains, but would have stranded on the tops of mountains of less height, and by the action of winds, ocean currents, as well as the constant ebb and flow of the tides, rising and falling, advancing and retreating, would have ground and scoured off the mountain summits; and at each recurring warm season, corresponding to our summer, they would have become free and floated off into still warmer latitudes carrying with them masses of rock, boulders large and small, and droping them as the ice melted. This process must have continued for a long period, and as the land gradually emerged from the ocean, the summits of less elevated mountains would be subjected to similar degradation. As the mountain ranges appeared above the water, the direction of the currents, with the moving ice, would correspond with the trend of the ranges. Degradation and denudation would cease on the summits and increase on the flanks of the mountains, as more land was exposed to the action of the ice as it crowded through the valleys. At times the ice would become wedged between converging ridges, working great destruction to the rock surface exposed to its pressure. As the continent became more elevated, the climate became milder. The ice floes and icebergs existed only in more northern latitudes, while the broad valleys became arms of the sea and finally were reduced to the condition of rivers, which have left a record of their existence in the kames or terraces along the course of our present river valleys and high above the beds of existing streams. (See chapter on the natural characteristics of this county.)

      Glaciers, icebergs and field ice in the earlier ages, and atmospheric action, as heat, cold, rains and river action in later times, are the agents that have been employed in cutting, carving and scouring away the rock and in distributing the broken and ground-up debris over the earth, resulting in giving the surface of our county its present contour of architectural beauty.

      Fossils are rarely found in the rocks of the county. The high metamorphism to which they have been subjected has obliterated them. A few fossils have been found in the Tertiary formation at Brandon, consisting of twenty-three species of fruits and seeds associated with brown coal (lignite), kaolin, iron ocher (limnite) and manganese ore; all of the above are found in the east part of the town at the foot of the Green Mountains. While constructing the Rutland and Burlington Railroad, at Mount Holly, the tusks of a fossil elephant were found in a muck-bed near the summit at an elevation of 1,415 above tide water.

      The following list of minerals, known to exist in Rutland county, is taken from the State Geological Reports, 1861: 

      Under this head I propose to speak of those minerals that are of commercial importance, upon which industries have been based, that are now or have been worked to a greater or less extent, in Rutland county. Of this class of minerals, marble is the most important. It consists of that part of the limestone (calcium carbonate) formation that has been subjected to the greatest degree of metamorphism, comprising a great variety of delicately tinted, clouded, veined and mottled marbles, some of which have a granular, or sacarhoidal texture, entirely freed of color, and known as statuary marble. All of these are susceptible of taking a high polish, many of them comparing favorably with, while some excel in firmness of texture and beauty, the most celebrated marbles of antiquity.

      Although marble exists and is worked to some extent in many parts of this State, the bulk of the deposit lies in Rutland county, where the largest quarries and mills for producing and manufacturing marble in the world are to be found. Channeling machines and power drills driven by steam and in some instances by compressed air are used for quarrying. Nearly all of the quarries use steam derricks and cranes for handling the blocks. The mills are provided with the most improved kinds of machinery for sawing, such as automatic saw and sand feeds, rubbing beds, lathes for turning, polishing, etc. The extent to which the industry is carried on, amount of capital invested, together with the improvements in machinery for quarrying, sawing and finishing, have made Vermont one of the largest (if not the largest) marble producing district in the world.

      The earliest known reference to the existence of marble in Vermont is found in a letter from Nathaniel CHIPMAN to General Philip SCHUYLER, of New York, alluding to a conversation had between them the winter before at Philadelphia, and suggesting the resources of Vermont which might contribute to sustain a proposed canal to be built between the Hudson River and Lake Champlain. "There are also," he says, "in this part of the country numerous quarries of marble, some of them of superior quality. Machines may easily be erected for sawing it into slabs by water, and in that state it might become an important article of commerce."  This letter is dated at Rutland, January 25, 1792.
 
 

"History of Rutland County Vermont with Illustrations & 
Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men & Pioneers"
Edited by H. Y. Smith & W. S. Rann, Syracuse, N. Y.
D. Mason & Co., Publishers, 1886
History of Rutland County
Chapter XIII.
(pages 171-180)

Transcribed by Karima, 2002