Cylinders of dry Sioux Quartzite and Westerly Granite have been deformed in creep under transient conditions at 200 MPa confining pressure in the temperature interval 480¿ to 783¿C. This temperature range spans the &agr;-&bgr; quartz transition which affects the creep behavior of both rocks profoundly, as was observed previously for synthetic single crystals of quartz. Activation energies and crreep rates measured at 0.3% strain are appreciably lower in the &bgr;-quartz stability field then in the &agr;-field. Deformation is semibrittle over the conditions explored. These results establish that quartz controls the creep rate of granite at least at low strains in the transient creep regime.