[Rockhounds] SNAIL'S TALES: A trip to find Potomac marble and snails

[Frederick Olmstead]

More:  Potomac Marble....


http://snailstales.blogspot.com/2008/05/trip-to-find-potomac-marble-and-snails.html 
<http://snailstales.blogspot.com/2008/05/trip-to-find-potomac-marble-and-snails.html>


    ............04 May 2008


      A trip to find Potomac marble and snails
      <http://snailstales.blogspot.com/2008/05/trip-to-find-potomac-marble-and-snails.html>


Where the rocks and soil are rich in calcium carbonate, there are likely 
to be lots of snails, because snails build their shells out of calcium 
carbonate 
<http://snailstales.blogspot.com/2005/11/snail-shells-are-made-of-this.html>. 
Unfortunately for me, however, calcium carbonate containing rocks are 
rare where I live in Maryland. So, when I recently read in Mike High's 
The C&O Canal Companion (1997) that outcrops of a limestone conglomerate 
called Potomac marble <http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/stones/stones3.html> 
could be seen at a location along the C&O Canal, I headed for the spot 
late Friday afternoon.

I parked my car at the Monocacy Aqueduct 
<http://snailstales.blogspot.com/2007/12/monocacy-aqueduct.html> and got 
on my trike to travel on the canal towpath. My destination was a place 
called Camp Kanawha about 5 miles upstream from the aqueduct and reached 
from the towpath by a short trail that goes over the train tracks. Here 
is the entrance to the camp surrounded by boulders of Potomac marble. It 
was just like the description in High's book........



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