Excerpt from What Rome Was Built With a Description of the Stones Employed in Ancient Times for Its Building and Decoration Of limestones from which the greater part of marble is derived there are two varieties, the most common being formed of the hardened calcareous remains of plants and animals, that is, of organic origin. The other variety is of inorganic formation, and is deposited by water carrying carbonate of lime in solution, thus forming sheets of limestone. Of such is the ordinary compact limestone. It is difficult to ascertain from which of these two formations a marble may be derived, as in crystallization all fossil remains are often entirely obliterated. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.