IO NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
LETTER: iM: 
TO THE SAME. 
As in a former letter the freestone of this place has been only 
mentioned incidentally, I shall here become more particular. 
This stone is in great request for hearth-stones, and the beds of 
ovens : and in lining of lime-kilns it turns to good account ; for the 
workmen use sandy loam instead of mortar; the sand of which 
fluxes,* and runs by the intense heat, and so cases over the whole 
face of the kiln with a strong vitrified coat-like glass, that it is well 
preserved from injuries of weather, and endures thirty or forty 
years. When chiseled smooth, it makes elegant fronts for houses, 
equal in colour and grain to the Bath stone ; and superior in one 
respect, that, when seasoned, it does not scale. Decent chimney- 
pieces are worked from it of much closer and finer grain than 
Portland ; and rooms are floored with it; but it proves rather too 
soft for this purpose. It is a freestone cutting in all directions ; yet 
has something of a grain parallel with the horizon, and therefore 
should not be surbedded, but laid in the same position that it grows 
in the quarry. On the ground abroad this firestone will not 
succeed for pavements, because, probably some degree of saltness 
prevailing within it, the rain tears the slabs to pieces.t Though 
this stone is too hard to be acted on by vinegar, yet both the white 
part, and even the blue rag, ferments strongly in mineral acids. 
Though the white stone wili not bear wet, yet in every quarry at 
intervals there are thin strata of blue rag, which resists rain and 
frost ; and are excellent for pitching of stables, paths and courts, 
and for building of dry walls against banks, a valuable species of 
fencing much in use in this village, and for mending of roads. 
This rag is rugged and stubborn, and will not hew to a smooth face, 
but is very durable ; yet, as these strata are shallow and lie deep, 
* There may probably be also in the chalk itself that is burnt for lime a proportion of 
sand: for few chalks are so pure as to have none. 
+ To surbed stone 1s to set it edgewise, contrary to the posture it had in the quarry, 
says Dr. Plot, ‘‘ Oxfordshire,” p. 77. But serdedding does not succeed in our dry walls; 
neither do we use it so in ovens, though he says it is best for Teynton stone. 
} ‘‘ Firestone is full of salts, and has no sulphur: must be close-grained, and have no 
interstices. Nothing supports fire like salts ; saltstone perishes exposed to wet and frost.” 
—Prot’s “ Staff.,” p. 152. 
