10 WHITE 



for pavements, because, probably some degrees of saltness pre- 

 vailing within it, the rain tears the slabs to pieces. 3 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 will not bear wet, yet in every 

 quarry at intervals there are thin strata of blue rag, which 

 resist 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, large quantities cannot 

 be procured but at considerable expense. Among the blue 

 rags turn up some blocks tinged with a stain of yellow or rust 

 color, which seem to be nearly as lasting as the blue; and 

 every now and then balls of a friable substance, like rust of 

 iron, called rust balls. 



In Wolmer Forest I see but one sort of stone, called by 

 the workmen sand, or forest-stone. This is generally of the 

 color of rusty iron, and might probably be worked as iron 

 ore ; is very hard and heavy, and of a firm, compact texture, 

 and composed of a small roundish crystalline grit, cemented 

 together by a brown, terrene, ferruginous matter ; will not cut 

 without difficulty, nor easily strike fire with steel. Being often 

 found in broad flat pieces, it makes good pavement for paths 

 about houses, never becoming slippery in frost or rain ; is 

 excellent for dry walls, and is sometimes used in buildings. 

 In many parts of that waste it lies scattered on the surface 

 of the ground ; but is dug on Weaver's Down, a vast hill on 

 the eastern verge of that forest, where the pits are shallow 

 and the stratum thin. This stone is imperishable. 



From a notion of rendering their work the more elegant, 

 and giving it a finish, masons chip this stone into small frag- 

 ments about the size of the head of a large nail, and then 

 stick the pieces into the wet mortar along the joints of their 

 freestone walls; this embellishment carries an odd appear- 

 ance, and has occasioned strangers sometimes to ask us 

 pleasantly, "whether we fastened our walls together with 

 tenpenny nails." 



