1757.] jared eliot. 375 



hollow stick was filled with indigo seed. I am often recollecting 

 our conversation with pleasure. 



I am apt to think, that if your salt marsh, that is drained, was 

 ploughed and planted with Indian corn for several years, it would 

 bring it into good order for corn or grass. That crude, saline 

 nature, should be exposed to dews, and rains, and sun. 



I told thee, that I had been informed that the grindstones, and 

 millstones, were split with wooden pegs, drove in ; but I did not 

 say that those rocks about thy house could be split after that 

 manner ; but that I could split them, and had been used to split 

 rocks, to make steps, door-sills, and large window-cases all of 

 stone, and pig-troughs, and water-troughs. I have split rocks 

 seventeen feet long, and built four houses of hewn stone, split out 

 of the rock with my own hands. My method is, to bore the rock 

 about six inches deep, having drawn a line from one end to the 

 other, in which I bore holes about a foot asunder, more or less, ac- 

 cording to the freeness of the rock ; if it be three or four or five 

 feet thick, ten, twelve, or sixteen inches deep. The holes should 

 be an inch and a quarter diameter, if the rock be two feet thick ; 

 but if it be five or six feet thick, the holes should be an inch and 

 three quarters diameter,, There must be provided twice as many iron 

 wedges as holes ; and one half of them must be made full as long 

 as the hole is deep, and made round at one end, just fit to drop into 

 the hole ; the other half may be made a little longer, and thicker 

 one way, and blunt-pointed. All the holes must have their wedges 

 drove together, one after another, gently, that they may strain all 

 alike. You may hear by their ringing, when they strain well. 

 Then, with the sharp end of the sledge, strike hard on the rock, 

 in the line between every wedge, which will crack the rock ; then 

 drive the wedges again. It generally opens in a few minutes after 

 the wedges are drove tight. Then, with an iron bar, or long 

 levers, raise them up, and lay the two pieces flat, and bore and 

 split them in what shape and dimensions you please. If the rock 

 is anything free, you may split them as true, almost, as sawn tim- 

 ber ; and by this method you may split almost any rock, for you 

 may add what power you please, by boring the holes deeper and 

 closer together. * * * 



