FLORENCE. 49 



The Florentine is a most admirable mason. He has the 

 best of materials ; for the limestone round about is, as I am 

 informed, all water lime ; there is a mountain of unsurpassed 

 building stone no farther off than Fiesole, and the sand for 

 mortar comes out of the river Arno, which runs right through 

 the city. Now the rocks that yield this sand are in the hills 

 hard by. The sand has been rotted but little and is sharp. 

 Every builder knows what this means. As a natural and 

 necessary consequence the getting of sand from the bed of the 

 river Arno is a separate and special industry belonging to a 

 certain class of people, who attain great skill in their pursuit 

 and make a steady living. It may sound a little queer, when 

 one speaks of skill in digging sand, but it is so all the same. 

 The sand is dug from a boat moored out in the stream. The 

 boat is a keel boat, but is of great beam in order to be suffi- 

 ciently shallow and yet allow of the necessary displacement. 

 With a long handled shovel, altogether like those used for 

 sinking the holes for telegraph poles, the sand is dug from the 

 bottom with a peculiar jerk. As it comes up through the 

 water it seems to be washed free from every particle of mould, 

 and a boat load is from a ton and a half to two tons. Some 

 of it is raised to the level of the high quay in the ordinary 

 way by shovelling from platform to platform. But the greater 

 part is taken to a point just above the lower dam (one of two 

 dams built across the river to prevent smuggling) and tossed 

 through a suitable opening in the solid wall of the stone 

 quay. Where it goes I, honestly, do not know, probabl}- into 

 another boat. If so, that boat must float on a subterranean 

 canal which has issue — I do not know where. But there is 

 no mistake whatever about the hole and the sand tossed in. 

 The work is going on every day and all day long, and is as 

 much a matter of course as an ordinary city inlet in Philadel- 

 phia. So much so that I am ashamed to say I somehow took 

 the whole matter for granted, and never made any inquiries. 



One day on the New Lung' Arno the ground floor of a 

 larj.',e building was being put in. The foundations proper had 



