MARBLE.
Tau-wha-shih, . . CHIN. Pualain, Mannar, MALAY. Marmer, . . . DoT. . PERS.
Marbre, FR. Marmore, . . . PORT, Marino, IT Mramor, . . . . Roe.
Marmor, . . . ' LAT. Marmol, Sr Marble is the granular limestone or carbonate of lime of mineralogists. It is hard, compact, of a fine. texture, and readily takes a .fine polish. In colour, some marbles are quite black, others again are of a snowy white ; others are greenish, greyish, reddish, bluish, or yellowish, and some 'are variegated and spotted. In Europe, the finest solid marbles are those of Italy, Blackenburg, France, and Flanders.
The marbles of Tabreez and Khorasan are transported to the most remote quarters of the Persian empire, and -marble is found in many parts of British India, in Burma, and in China. It. is obtained in llo-man, Shensi, YU11.-11a1/, and Canton. The blue-clouded marble slabs of China are about a foot square, and are exported to India, Sydney, South America, etc., for pavement or floors. It is obtained to the north-west of Canton. There is also a red breccia marble brought to Canton, which is employed in tables, stone stools, etc., and is seldom sent abroad. The marbleS of the Madras Presidency are of rare colour and fine quality. The specimens sent to the Great Exhibition of 1851 were favourably reported upon as indicative of a valuable material, well adapted to sculptural and ornamental purposes. At present the Indian manufacture of this article is comparatively insignificant, and chiefly confined to small miscellaneous articles for domestic use., Marble is found in considerable quantities in the Coimbatore district, through a tract of 7 or 8 miles, extending to the 1Valior jungle. Its colours are white, grey, and pink, compact, dense in structure, with veins of other colours. A green marble is found in Tinnevelly.
The pure white marble of Tinnevelly is in large crystals like that of Burma. The marbles of the Cnddapah district are of greenish colours, from pale apple-green to deep leek-green, and beauti fully shaded ; they attracted attention in the Exhibition of 1851. At Bhera Ghat, on the Nor badda, 10 miles from Jubbulpur, on the line of the railway to Bombay, a white saccharine marble is plentiful and easily accessible. It has been used in a limited degree nt Jubbulpur, sometimes to make lime, and other times for metalling roads. It is made up into images by natives, who do not it a good polish. A block which was sent the Paris Exhibition of 1855 was pronounced to be equal to Italian marble for statuary pur poses; very large slabs can be easily quarried. The marble rocks at the Bhera Ghat, on the Ner badda, about 10 miles from Jubbulpur, narrow the stream there to 20 yards, and the shining cliffs of white marble, a dolomite or magnesian limestone, rise there to 80 or 120 feet. The granular white marble of Korhadi, 3 feet by 2, and 9 inches thick, is sold at Rs. 2. This marble and the sandstone and coal of the same locality, with the alabaster, gypsum, and dolomite of Jubbulpur, will probably become articles of export. At Tinnevelly, also, there is an excellent
white marble, but considered rather too hard for statuary purposes ; and Guntur and the Ceded Districts abound with marbles of great variety of colours, being tints of grey, yellow, and red. Marble occurs at Attock. Both white and grey occur at Nooshky. The marbles and building stones, and the red sandstone so commonly seen in all ancient buildings from Benares up to Labor; were formerly imported from these parts, and magnificent mosques, tombs, and shrines yet remain to tell us of that trade.
Marble in the Panjab is found in the Dchli district, at Sabi Bullubghur, Hissar, and Jhelum.
The marble used by the Burmese in the manu facture of their numerous figures of Gantaina, for the pagodas, etc., is obtained from the quarries in the small steep ridge of the Tsagyen Hills, near the village of .Mowe, in the district of Madeya, a little N.. of Mandalay. The great mass of the limestone forms the summit and eastern face of the hills, and here are situated all the quarries from which the marble has been extracted. The limestone rests upon hortiblendic gneissose rocks, which form the lower portion of the hills, and is for the most part tolerably pure and massive, but occasionally has an imperfect lamination, given by flaky plates of mica arranged in lines of the mass. It is, al the mass, of nearly a pure white, and is largely and finely crystallized. Portions of it have a delicately blue tint, while others are stained by ferruginous spots. A block suitable for a figure 3 feet high can be had at Amarapura for about 50 tikals, or about £0, and a figure of these dimensions may cost about 150 tikals, or about 180 rupees=118. Large blocks can now rarely be had, the largest obtainable do 'jot now average more than 4 or 5 feet long by 2 or 3 feet thick, but even these are not frequently obtained, and are expensive. For smaller blocks there is a con stant demand. The marble workers are settled at Amarapura and Tsagaing. With a hammer and chisel the workman rapidly gives a rough outline to the mass, and by occasionally, with a few lines of charcoal, marking out the drapery and limbs, lie rapidly completes the figure. Partly owing to the delicate tinge of blue, and to the generally large crystallization of the mass, there Cs a peculiar semi-transparent look about the finished sculptures, which has most probably given rise to the general notion that these images are of alabaster. Pallagoix speaks of the beautiful marble he found in the island of Si-Hang, on the coast of Siam, polished as brightly by the waves of the sea as it could have been by the hand of man.—Balfour on the Marbles of Southern India ; Central Provinces Gazetteer; Madras Ex. Jur. Reports; Powell; Oldham in Yule's Embassy, p. 327 ; 11PCulloch's Commercial Dictionary, p. 787 ; Bowring's Siam, i. p. 30.