Photos of marble quarries in Vermont

Not all of them are beautiful, or abstract, but all of the photos in Wired's gallery of beautiful abstract photos of mines are, indeed, of mines. Here's Pete Brook on the vast marble tombs left by a slowing business.

We’ve been cutting chunks of marble out of the mountains of Vermont since 1785. The continent’s first commercial marble quarry was cut into Mount Aeolus, and stonecutters came from all over the world to work its stone throughout the 19th century. The Vermont Marble Co. was the largest U.S. corporation when it was founded early in the 20th century. The industry has dwindled somewhat in the face of mounting competition from China and changing tastes in architecture, but granite remains a fundamental part of Vermont.