Alabaster staining - Coloring marbles the same?

["Peggy B. Perazzo" <pbperazzo@zzzzzzzzzzz>]

Daniel, I do not know if staining alabaster and marble are similar, but
here are some old ways from the mid-1800s that they used to use to color
marble pasted below.
Peggy

Peggy B. Perazzo
Stone Quarries and Beyond
http://www.cagenweb.com/quarries/

 From "The Marble-Worker's Manual," (1856) Designed for the Use of
Marble-Workers, Builders, and Owners of Houses. Containing practical
information respecting marbles in general; their cutting, working, and
polishing; veneering of marble; painting upon and coloring of marble;
mosaics; composition and use of artificial marble, stuccos, cements,
receipts, secrets, etc., etc. Translated from the French, By M. L. Booth,
with an Appendix Concerning American Marbles. Sheldon, Blakeman & Co.,
New-York, 1856.
http://www.cagenweb.com/quarries/articles_and_books/marble_workers_manual/mwh-contents.html

ON THE COLORING OF MARBLES.

§ 33. By an easy process, different colors are given to Marbles. Colors
extracted from vegetables, such as saffron, Brazilian wood, cochineal,
litmus, dragon's blood, etc., when joined with a suitable dissolvent, as
spirits of wine, urine mixed with quick lime and soda, oils, etc., stain
the Marble, and penetrate it quite deeply; but to give it stronger, more
durable and penetrating colors, metallic acidulous solutions are necessary,
such as aqua-fortis, spirits of salts, etc.

Artificial marble can also be made. This process is commenced by making a
foundation of plaster, tempered with glue water. This foundation is covered
about half an inch in thickness with the following composition:

Take foliated and transparent plaster-stone, calcine it by fire, and reduce
it to a very fine powder, dilute it with strong glue-water, and add red or
yellow ochre, or whatever color may be wished. The coloring should not be
wholly mixed with the composition when veined Marble is desired. After this
composition has been applied, and is perfectly dry, polish it by first
rubbing it with fine sand, and afterwards with pumice, or trioli stone, and
finish by rubbing finally with oil.