RICH MARBLE QUARRIES

Hokitika Guardian, 7 October 1929, Page 7

RICH MARBLE QUARRIES

WORKED FOR .2003 YEARS. Italy is said to .possess the world’s finest, richest and most varied marble quarries, quarries worked for more than 2000 years and still inexhaustible, while the southern section of the peninsula is rich in veins of beautiful coloured marbles so far commercially exploited to a small extent (writes the. Rome correspondent of the “Christian Science ijdonitor”). Italy is also unusually rich in quarries of valuable and choice building stones and has large deposits of such valuable volcanic products as .pozzalana and pumice stone. 1 he. ouput of marble, defined as stone susceptible of a high polish and suited to the needs of sculptors, architects and decorators, last year amounted to more than half a million metric tons. The most important quarries for white marble are the world-famous formations of Messrs Carrara in Tuscany. They lie in the Apuan Alps and in the upper valley of the Serchio while the generic name of Carrara marble is given to that coming from the quarries of Carrara, Messa, Versilia and Garfagnana. The celebrated Luni marbles of antiquity came from the Carrara quarries, whence they were snipped to Rome from the neighbouring port of Luni. It was. from these quarries that tne great blocks forming Trajan’s column came and from which, the Apollo Belvedere were chiselled. The quantities which have made tnese marbles famous are their fine grain, which lends admirably to the sculptor’s chisel, the high polish of which they are capable, their smooth textures equal to that of the Parian marble of the Greeks, and the warm, creamy shades that make them so highly prized by sculptors. The chemical composition of the Apuan marbles is exceptionally free from impurities. Examined under the microscope, all these specimens reveal an identical structure, consisting of polvsynthetic caleite crystals oriented ;n all directions.

Apuan or Carrara marbles are classified for commercial purpose in statuary m/arbles, in which crystallisation is very marked, and ordinary white marbles. The statuary marbles subdivide into two main classes: white, tending to cram in the choicer specimens, especially adapted for statuary, and bluish white marbles, veined, hut free from spots, highly suited for decorative -work. The ordinary white marales subdivide into the so-called paonazzo, of a cream ish colour with green and yellow markings similar to those found in the Greek marble of 'that name, arabescato, so called because of its extensive network of veinings, largely exported to Germany and used for the tops of washing tables, for bathrooms, etc.; calacala, a white marble with faint yellow streaks. Besides the famed white marbles these quarries are noted for coloured varieties of great beauty, among which is the bluish bardiglio.