In Ireland, the Kilkenny marble is the one best known, having a black ground more or less varied with white marks produced by petrifactions. The spar which occupies the place of the shells, sometimes assumes a greenish-yellow colour. An exceedingly fine black marble has also been raised at Crayleath in the county of Down. At Louthlougher, in the county of Tipperary, a fine purple marble is found, which when polished looks very beautiful. The county of Kerry affords several variegated marbles, not unlike the Kilkenny.
France possesses a great many marble quarries which have been described by Brard, and of which a copious abstract is given under the article marble,—Rees’ Cyclopedia.
The territory of Genoa furnishes several beautiful varieties of marble, the most remarkable of which is the polzevera di Genoa, called in French the vert d’Egypte and vert de mer. It is a mixture of granular limestone with a talcose and serpentine substance disposed in veins; and it is sometimes mixed with a reddish body. This marble was formerly much employed in Italy, France, and England, for chimney-pieces, but its sombre appearance has put it out of fashion.
Corsica possesses a good statuary marble of a fine close grain, and pure milky whiteness, quarried at Ornofrio; it will bear comparison with that of Carrara; also a gray marble (bardiglio), a cipolin, and some other varieties. The island of Elba has immense quarries of a white marble with blackish-green veins.
Among the innumerable varieties of Italian marbles, the following deserve especial notice.
The rovigio, a white marble found at Padua; the white marble of St. Julien, at Pisa, of which the cathedral and celebrated slanting tower are built; the Biancone marble, white with a tinge of gray, quarried at Magurega for altars and tombs. Near Mergozza the white saline marble with gray veins is found, with which the cathedral of Milan is built. The black marble of Bergamo is called paragone, from its black colour, like touchstone; it has a pure intense tint, and is susceptible of a fine polish. The pure black marble of Como is also much esteemed. The polveroso of Pistoya, is a black marble sprinkled with dots; and the beautiful white marble with black spots, from the Lago Maggiore, has been employed for decorating the interior of many churches in the Milanese. The Margorre marble found in several parts of the Milanese, is bluish veined with brown, and composes part of the dome of the cathedral of Milan. The green marble of Florence owes its colour to a copious admixture of steatite. Another green marble, called verde di Prado, occurs in Tuscany, near the little town of Prado. It is marked with spots of a deeper green than the rest, passing even into blackish-blue. The beautiful Sienna marble, or brocatello di Siena, has a yellow colour like the yolk of an egg, which is disposed in large irregular spots, surrounded with veins of bluish-red, passing sometimes into purple. At Montarenti, two leagues from Sienna, another yellow marble is met with, which is traversed by black and purplish-black veins. The Brema marble is yellow with white spots. The mandelato of the Italians is a light red marble with yellowish-white spots, found at Luggezzana, in the Veronese. The red marble of Verona is of a red rather inclining to yellow or hyacinth; a second variety of a dark red, composes the vast amphitheatre of Verona. Another marble is found near Verona, with large white spots in a reddish and greenish paste. Very fine columns have been made of it. The occhio di pavone is an Italian shell marble, in which the shells form large orbicular spots, red, white, and bluish. A madreporic marble known under the name of pietra stellaria, much employed in Italy, is entirely composed of star madrepores, converted into a gray and white substance, and is susceptible of an excellent polish. The village of Bretonico, in the Veronese, furnishes a splendid breccia marble, composed of yellow, steel-gray, and rose-coloured spots. That of Bergamo consists of black and gray fragments in a greenish cement. Florence marble, called also ruin and landscape marble, is an indurated calcareous marl.
Sicily abounds in marbles, the most valuable of which is that called by the English stone-cutters, Sicilian jasper; it is red with large stripes like ribands, white, red, and sometimes green, which run zigzag with pretty acute angles.
Among the Genoese marbles we may notice the highly esteemed variety called portor, on account of the brilliant yellow veins in a deep black ground. The most beautiful kind comes from Porto-Venese, and Louis XIV. caused a great deal of it to be worked up for the decoration of Versailles. It costs now two pounds per cubic foot.
Of cutting and polishing marble.—The marble saw is a thin plate of soft iron, continually supplied during its sawing motion, with water and the sharpest sand. The sawing of moderate pieces is performed by hand, but that of large slabs is most economically done by a proper mill.