BaUding Sfuvei^ of Victoria. 181 



Tablk of Specific Ghavitiks and \\'ki(;hts pkk Cuuic Foor. 



specific Gravity ^^'^JH- Cubic 



Stawell - - - 2.371 - 148 



Dunkeld - - - 2.324 - 145 



Bai-rabool Hills - 2.144 - 134 



Apollo Bay - - 2.335 - 146 



Bacchus JMarsh - 2.0S1 - 130 



Dailey - - - 2.043 - 128 



Egerton (fine) - - 2.114 - 132 



Egerton (coarse) - 2.039 - 128 



Greendale - - 2.164 - 135 



Sydney - - - 2.303 - 144 



Most of the stones are light. This is due to their high 

 porosity as shown later on by their absorption values. The 

 most compact one is that from Stawell, and it is also the least 

 porous. 



2. — Resistance to Crushing. 



These compression tests have been carried out on the testing- 

 machine at the Engineering School, University of Melbourne, 

 bv Mr. James Mann, and I am indebted to Acting-Professor Hig- 

 gins for their inclusion here. This test is the one most com- 

 monly conducted on building stones, but its value lies more 

 in giving an indication of the adherence of the particles in the 

 stone, and so a measure of the stone's durability, than whether 

 it is strong enough, as only in exceptional cases with ordinary 

 building stones does the load ai^proach the safety value. Most 

 of these tests have been conducted on 3-inch cubes, or there- 

 abouts, in the usual manner, and the Sydney sandstone is again 

 inserted for comparison. MerrilU states that no fair compari- 

 son of the crushing strengths of stone can be made except be- 

 tween results obtained during a single series of tests. How- 

 ever, the values in the accompanying tables have all been ob- 

 tained in a uniform manner by the same operator, and can 

 reasonably be assumed to be fairly comparative amonirst them- 

 selves. 



1 stones for Building and Decoration, p. 497. 



