IH 



MASCAGNIN. 



MASONRY. 



10 



Aurelius Antoninus. (Eusebiua, ' Ecc. Hist.,' IT. 5 ; v. i. ; and 

 Lardner's ' Works,' vol. vii., p. loO, edition'of 1881.) The histories cf 

 these martyrs arejcalled Martyrologies, of which the earliest is that of 

 Clement I., bishop of Rome. Middleton has shown that many of the 

 accounts in the early Martyrologies are fabulous. He mentions, in his 

 ' Letter from Borne,' some curious instances in which persons who 

 never existed, heathen deities with their names slightly or not at. all 

 changed, and even inanimate objects, have been canonised as saints and 

 martyrs. As examples of this description of works we may mention 

 the ' Martyrology ' of Eusebius, which was translated into Latin by 

 Jerome, and was celebrated in the early church, but is lost; that 

 ascribed to the venerable Bede, but the genuineness of which is very 

 doubtful ; and the ' Acts and Monuments ' of Fox, which is an elaborate 

 and valuable record of the sufferings of the English reformers. 



Much interesting information on this subject may be found in 

 Ruinart's Ada Afartyrum ; Dodwell's D'uaertationei Cijprianica, v., 

 xi., iii., xiii., and Dr. Conyers Middleton's Free Enquiry into the 

 t'own-t supposed to have subsisted in the Christian Church. 



MASCAGNIN (NH 4 0, S0., + 2aq.), volcanic sulphate of ammonia, 

 occurs stalactitic and pulverulent. Colour yellowish or grayish ; taste 

 acrid and bitter ; translucent or opaque. Volatilised entirely at a high 

 temperature. Occurs among the lavas of Etna and Vesuvius, Ao. 



MASCULINE and NEUTER. [GENDER.] 



MASONRY (from the French word mafonnerie), signifies the appli- 

 cation of stone to building purposes. It is a most important branch 

 of the arts of construction; because much both of the beauty and 

 durability of an edifice depends upon the excellence of the workman- 

 ship, and upon the colour and resistance of the stone. In situations 

 where the geological character of the soil is clayey, or where stone is 

 only to be obtained by means of a long and expensive land carriage, 

 there is so important an economical advantage in the use of bricks, that 

 utone is rarely resorted to, unless it be for the external decoration of 

 important public buildings ; and much of the style and taste of any 

 particular locality may be attributed to the relative abundance of these 

 materials, or rather, to the nature of the materials employed to produce 

 the external effect of a building. Thus we find that in the greater 

 part of England, and in Holland, where stone is only used exceptionally 

 for elevations, and where brickwork is the normal mode of building, 

 there is generally an absence of bold, and what may be called palatial, 

 character in the prevalent style of architecture ; whilst in Edinburgh, 

 Paris, Genoa, Rome, Madrid, Ac., the stone elevations of the houses 

 and public buildings are marked by a breadth of handling our London 

 architects rarely attain. Perhaps the great facilities for internal com- 

 munication afforded by the railway system, may bring about a change 

 in the style of construction adopted in London ; but the facts of the 

 co-relation between the habitual use of stone and the state of archi- 

 il taste, and of the influence which that material exercises on 

 architecture, will remain the same. 



Stnne is used in walling, either in what is called rubble, or in ashlar 

 masonry ; or sometimes again in the style called brick and stone, or 

 mixed masonry. Rubble masonry, in its turn, may be either random 

 or dressed, according as the separate stones are dressed, or are left in 

 the rough state in which they leave the quarry. Ashlar work is 

 usually, but not necessarily, executed with large stones, which, under 

 all conditions of size at least, are dressed to regular faces on the beds 

 and joints ; whilst the exposed faces may either be left rough, or they 

 may be worked to a smooth surface. In mixed masonry the propor- 

 tions of stone and brick vary greatly ; for in some instances the use of 

 stone is confined to the window-dressings, strings, cornices, Ac., and in 

 it is further introduced in bonding courses, or alternate layers. 

 Another technical gubclassification of walling masonry is derived from 

 the manner in which the faces of the stones are dressed ; and according 

 to the nature of the material : it is said, if granite be used, to be 

 polished, line gritted, fine axed, bolstered, or point dressed ; if lime- 

 stone be used, it is said to be rubbed, tooled, or hammer-dressed ; and 

 the same words apply to sand stones. In some styles of architec- 

 ture an attempt is made to secure a certain amount of picturesque 

 effect, by treating the surface of the stone in a bold, but affected, style 

 of rough dressing, known amongst architects by the name of rustica- 

 tions, or of vermiculations. In these remarks upon the use of stone, 

 attention has been only directed to walling purposes ; because its appli- 

 cation to window and door cills, to lintels, copings, staircases landings, 

 paving, Ac., is rendered so compulsory by the very nature of the re- 

 quirements of the particular cases, that the discussion of the conditions 

 ot those branches of the mason's art must be left to the particular sub- 

 jects themselves. 



The qualities to be sought for in a building stone are durability, 

 facility of working, capability of receiving a fine surface, and agreeable 

 colour ; but, an in all large towns, the state of the atmosphere is to a 

 greater or less extent able rapidly to modify the original colour of the 

 stone, the conditions of durability, and of the facility of working, in so 

 far as the latter is likely to affect the cost of the work, are the most 

 important. It would appear that there is some hitherto unexplained 

 law affecting these questions, whereby the stone of any particular 

 locality renits the atmospheric influences of that locality more success- 

 fully than it could do those of any other situation ; but whatever may 

 be the explanation of this phenomenon, it is certain that an atmosphere 

 highly charged with carbonic, or with sulphuric, acid gases, is highly 



dangerous to the building stones usually employed. It is on this 

 account that London and Manchester are so particularly unfavourable 

 for masonry, and require such extraordinary care in the selection of 

 the stones intended to be used in the elevations of public buildings in 

 them, even without reference to the normal conditions of decay. As 

 thr atmosphere of every town has its own distinctive peculiarities, it 

 may be as well to illustrate the above remarks by some incidental 

 references to the action of the London atmosphere on the stones 

 hitherto exposed to it ; and to accompany them with some other inci- 

 dental remarks on the accidental circumstances likely to modify the 

 general laws thus arrived at. [ATMOSPHEBIO INFLUENCE.] 



The stone which hitherto has been proved to be the most adapted to 

 resist the action of the London atmosphere is the Portland oolite : a 

 fine-grained, sub-crystalline, carbonate of lime, of considerable hardness 

 and density, and without any very distinct traces of bedding in the 

 best varieties. The cost of the labour upon it, and the high price of 

 the stone itself, on account of the limited source of supply, render the 

 use of Portland stone less common than would be desirable, and 

 have led to the introduction into the London stone market of cheaper 

 and inferior materials. There are, however, some outlying patches of 

 the Portland oolite which might be brought to London at the present 

 day, such as the Tisbury, Upway, and Purbeck deposits ; and it really 

 seems that the fault of the high price of this variety of stone lies 

 rather in the want of enterprise on the part of the merchants, than in 

 any scarcity of the raw material. Portland stone, like all regularly 

 stratified bodies, cleaves more easily in one direction than in others ; 

 but in the finer beds (that is to say, in the beds producing the finest 

 stone) the character of the molecular structure becomes so homogeneous 

 that the planes of stratification become imperceptible ; and when this 

 La the case there is less danger in using the stone, for ordinary purposes 

 of masonry, in false bedding, than would be the case if the planes of 

 separation of the beds were more distinctly marked. The best beds of 

 the Portland stone are exposed to the inconveniences of flint nodules, 

 and of vents, as the workmen call the cracks produced in the mass 9f 

 the stone by the contractions which accompany its solidification. The 

 upper beds, or the roach Portland, are shelly, more decidedly crystalline 

 in the structure of the cementing material around the fossils, harder 

 and more difficult to work, and totally unfit, on account of the numerous 

 holes of the fossils, to be used in the masonry of ornamental structures ; 

 whilst, for hydraulic works, or other purposes requiring great strength 

 and durability, the roach is of great value. 



The member of the oolitic series which' has supported the action of 

 the London atmosphere the most successfully, after the Portland 

 stone, is the material known as the Kelton stone, obtained from the 

 midland counties ; and, like the Painswick variety of the same formation 

 which also stands tolerably well in London, it appears to owe this 

 property to the more decided character of the crystallisation of the 

 molecules of the cementing materials of the oolites. The Bath stone, 

 when very carefully selected, and used with all necessary precautions 

 as to bedding, and removal from excessive moisture, resists tolerably 

 well ; but the general character of the deposit is too irregular, and the 

 habits of London masons are too careless in everything which regards 

 the use of building stones, to allow either the Bath stone, or the 

 analogous member of the great oolite obtained from Caen in Normandy, 

 to be employed for external masonry in the metropolis. The Barnack 

 stone, formerly used to a great extent in Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, 

 and the Isle of Ely, has been exhausted, and its place is now locally 

 supplied by the Casterton stone ; these local varieties of the oolite are 

 characterised by an abundance of minute fossils, corals, and foramenifera, 

 and when well selected they seem to be tolerably durable. But it may 

 be observed with respect to them, and to the Ancoster stone (a very 

 beautiful looking material, said to be used successfully in the midland 

 counties), that until they have been employed for a long time in the 

 peculiar atmosphere of London, it would be dangerous to pass an 

 opinion upon their merits. 



There are several descriptions of sandstones used in London, arid in 

 various parts of England, for walling or external masonry, such as the 

 Dundee and Arbroath stones, those from Cragleith, Darley Dale, Park 

 Spring, and the neighbourhood of Leeds and Halifax ; but neither on 

 the score of their colour, of of their durability, can they be considered 

 to be superior to the Portland stone. For some uses, as for steps, 

 door cills, paving, hearths, Ac., the Yorkshire and Arbroath stones 

 present advantages on the score of their great strength, hardness, and 

 ease of conversion in the direction of the bed, and also on account of 

 their power of absorption of moisture, which renders their use desi- 

 rable for all masonry works in the interior of dwelling houses. These 

 sandstones when used in elevation are, however, exposed to decay 

 " between wind and water," as the masons designate 'the zones of walls 

 exposed to alternations of dryness or humidity. Unfortunately the 

 magnesian limestones, lately introduced for the construction of the 

 Houses of Parliament, have decayed in these positions even more 

 rapidly than the worst sandstones formerly employed; and it is no 

 exaggeration to say that the actual state of the masonry of that building 

 has assumed the proportions of a national misfortune. The Kentish 

 rag, so much used fot the rubble filling between the dressed quoins of 

 medieval architecture, in the modern revival of that style, appears to 

 resist the action' of the atmosphere very well ; but it is unfortunate 

 .hat in these buildings the material used for the quoins is generally 



