M 



gl'ARKV AND yUAUUVINt:. 



QUA1WY AND QUA1UIYIS<:. 



the weather, but wi liable to bo destr i or front. On tin 1 



other head, the rod Ume obtained from the quarries about the VuUi- 

 iiiui Lake (Battn),ou the border* of Tarquinii, would lUnd !> 

 ami fire, and would but for aget : on which account it wai generally 

 employed for sculptured work*. After the detrtu".:<<ii ( Uome by 

 fire, in the time of Nero, the houses are said to hare been n-i-uilt ! the 

 Alban and Gabian atone, which ha* the property of routing the action 

 of that element The quarries of Carrara, on the nurth-wentern dupe 

 of the Apennines, have long been celebrated for tho fine white marble 

 which it so much employed in the north of Kurope for statuary. 



The Bntish lalea abound with (tone of nearly every different kind 

 that can be employed with advantage in architecture. The quarried of 

 Aberdeenahire supply large quantities of the bent granit. . \\lii. !i IK 

 fiii)>loyed for bridges, river walls, and every work where strength and 

 durability are moat required. The Petorhead granite from the aame 

 county take* a beautiful polish, and is frequently employed for 

 column*, chimney-piece*, and other ornamental works. The Qrampian 

 Hill* in Scotland, the quarries in the county of Dublin, and thoae of 

 Newry in the county of Down, in Ireland, also produce several varieties 

 of the like material. In England granite is obtained chiefly, and in 

 great abundance, from the quarries in Cornwall, where that material is 

 usually designated moor-stone. 



Sandstone, both red and white, U obtained in large quantities for 

 the purposes of building, from Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Derby shire : 

 and the principal edifices in Shrewsbury have been constructed chiefly 

 of the white kind which U furnished by the quarries near Grinshill in 

 Shropshire. A millstone-grit, now much used in Kngland, is supplied 

 from Bramley and Hedon in Yorkshire. The red sandstone is dug 

 from the quarries at Barra, Tranent, and other places in Lothian ; from 

 those at Kingudie in Perthshire, and also from Arbroath in Forfar- 

 shire. In Ireland it is obtained from the quarries in Tipperary, and 

 the county of Cork. 



SLATE QUABRILS are noticed in a separate article. 

 Tho stone most extensively diffused over England and Ireland is that 

 which is denominated limestone, and which, from the facility it affords 

 for working it, is most generally called freestone. It is quarried to 

 some extent in Gloucestershire, Shropshire, Derbyshire, and Oxford- 

 shire, and a gray species is obtained in Yorkshire and Northampton- 

 shire ; but the principal quarried 01 ibis material are in Dorsetshire and 

 in the country about Bath. Those in Dorsetshire are situated about 

 Kingston in the Isle of Portland, and at Swanwich, or Swanage, in the 

 Isle of Purbeck. The most extensive quarries about Bath are at 

 Combe Down, where the ground has been undermined for several 

 Inilea. More than 30,000 tons of Portland stone are said to be ex- 

 ported annually to London, where it has been very generally employed 

 from the time that Inigo Jones used it in the construction of the 

 Banqueting-houae at Whitehall. It was also extensively used by Sir 

 Christopher Wren in the building of St. Paul's cathedral, the Monu- 

 ment, and most of the public edifices in the city after the great fire 

 which occurred in 1666. It is, however, not so much used at present a* 

 formerly. The stone obtained from Purbeck is of various kinds ; some 

 of it, which is capable of taking a good polish, ha* been used for the 

 pillars of Salisbury and Canterbury cathedrals. It is of a darker colour 

 than Portland stone, and in general it is not so good ; the blocks 

 raised from the quarries ore also smaller. The material is frequently 

 used as a flag-stone for the steps nf buildings and for paving the streets. 

 The hills containing the stone lie in a direction nearly east and west ; 

 the beds have a considerable dip or inclination to the horizon, and 

 being covered by a large mass of earth, the men work in quarries 

 under ground. The stone of Portland and Purbeck constitutes the 

 upper oolite formation of the geologists ; and in the former district 

 the quarries are cut through several different beds. The first, or that 

 immediately below the vegetable earth, consists of a oreMD-OoIourad 

 limestone, three or four feet deep ; and next to it is tho r/. './.. 

 which is of the same colour, very hard, and about ten feet thick. 

 Below these U a species of rock composed of fragments of oystershells 

 cemented together ; and still lower is a bed, five feet thick, of good 

 white stone. Tbi* is followed by a quantity of Hint about six feel 

 deep, a second bed of good stone five feet deep, and a thin layer ol 

 stones of small value. The best building-stone lies still deeper, and 

 the beds of it vary in thickness from seven to fourteen feet. Under- 

 neath all these are masses of flints, extending to the depth of fifty or 

 sixty feet. 



The quarries near Bath furnish the stone which bears the name ol 

 that town, and which occurs generally in three bods, of variable thick- 

 nesses sod different qualities. Th.it in tin 1 middle is far Mi]n-rior to 

 those which are above and below it. The depth of the middle bed is 

 in some places as much as 30 feet ; the stone when first taken from the 

 quarry is soft, but it become* hard after having been for a time 

 exposed to the air. The depth of the upper bed varies from 20 to 

 above 60 feet, and the material is cither shelly or argillaceous ; that o: 

 the former kind appears to have been employed by the Romans 

 for the edifices they constructed in this part of the country, and is 

 very durable. 



The marble and limestone quarries which were opened in ai 

 Plymouth in 1812 furnished the material used in tho formation of the 

 breakwater at that place ; the utoue was raised from thence in blocks 

 weighing from one to above five tons. The material selected for the con 



traction of UK Houses of Parliament U a magneaian limestone, . 

 abound* in all tho tract of country from Durham to Northampton ; 

 and that which in actually employed U obtained from several differ- 

 ent quorri. -. principally those near Norfall and A niton in Yorkshire, 

 and near liuUwver in JVi I. \-hire. The unfortunate result of this 

 selection will be found noticed un.l. r STONE FOR Hi n nix... 



Limestone is found in Scotland, where it is occasionally employed 

 'or architectural purposes. It i* also plentiful in many parts of 

 : ami quarries of this material, of a rich kind, nave been 

 opened in Queen's county, and in the counties of Dublin, Meath, 

 and Cork. The limestone district of Kilkenny is famous for itu 

 quarries of black marble so much used for ornamental purposes; and 

 good flagstones for paving are obtained at Shawhill in the same 

 county. 



The quarries in the CoUwold HilU in Gloucestershire afford in 

 ibuudaucc a ; blue clayxtoue for building; and the best stones for 

 pavements are obtained from those at Ealand, or Eland, near Halifax 

 in Yorkshire. The quarries near Maidstone, on the south bank of 

 the Medway, produce much of what is called rogstone. a material 

 which is occasionally used in Kent for building, but chiefly in the 

 construction of sea-walls and for paving the roods. Lastly, about 

 Reigato and Oodstouo in Surrey is found a soft stone which lias the 

 property of withstanding the action of fire, and which on that account 

 is much used for chimneys, ovens, and furnaces ; but it is scare, 

 for any other purpose. 



A valuable table of the principal quarries of sandstone 

 limestone in England accompanies the ' Report concerning the 

 Qualities of Stone with ivii-ivnce to the New Houses of Parlia- 

 ment' (1839). 



Having thus explained the nature of quarriet, we proceed to notice 



arrying, which is the operation of extracting from the ground, or 

 detaching from the sides of rocks, marble, stone, or other minerals, in 

 considerable masses ; generally also this operation is accompanied by 

 a reduction of the masses to rectangular forms. 



When the material to be excavated lies vertically below the surface 

 of the ground, the work commences by removing the earth to a depth 

 sufficient to lay that material bare, in order that it may be separated 

 into blocks, and removed ; but when the stone, c., is in the interior, 

 and near the side of a mountain or hill, the workmen proceed as 

 in the operation of mining, running galleries into the ground, and 

 leaving pillars of the material for the support of the mass above 

 them. 



A quarry of small extent is opened by sinking vertically in the 

 ground a shaft, into which the men descend by ladders ; and the 

 blocks of stone, being separated from the moss, are drawn up by means 

 of cranes, which are worked by a windlass or other machine. In 

 working the larger quarries, the vegetable mould forming the upper 

 surface is removed by the spade ; and the beds immediately under- 

 neath, generally consisting of rag, or stone of an inferior quality, arc 

 broken up by gunpowder or otherwise, and conveyed to a distance. 

 The stones intended for sale, and which are generally in beds much 

 below the surface, are sometimes also detached from the mass by 

 ing [MIXING] ; but as by this process the blocks are broken irregularly 

 and the stone wasted, a different method is generally employed. The 

 large moss of stone, as it exists in the quarry, consists of strata con- 

 tiguous one to another, and the surfaces in contact form planes of 

 i It Hi-aye ; in lines parallel to which the stones being more easily 

 divided than in any other direction, these lines constitute what is 

 called the cleaving grain of the material In order, therefore, to sepa- 

 rate a large block from the mass, a series of iron wedges, placed in 

 line a few inches asunder, on the natural face of the rock and in 

 the direction of tho cleaving groin, are driven into the stone till 

 a part is loosened : a channel is then cut in the direction of the 

 length of the intended block, and at a distance from the natural edge 

 of the stone equal to iU required breadth ; and wedges being planted 

 in the channel, they ore driven by repeated strokes till the stone is 

 split in that direction also. In the hardest stones, the wedges are 

 placed not in the channels, but in what ore colled pool holes sunk in 

 the direction in which the block is to be severed from the mass. A 

 similar operation is then performed in the direction of the breadth of 

 the block; and thus a large portion is detached from the original 

 DBMS. 



The natural strata of the stone in different quarries are in different 

 positions ; frequently they ore horizontal, but generally they are 

 incline.! to that plane, and sometimes they are vertical : occasionally 

 also both the first and last of these positions ore assumed by the stone 

 in the same quarry. It is evident that the separation of the blocks 

 from a mass must be most easily effected when the natural strata ore 

 in vertical [wwitions. 



After the blocks have been severed from the mass, they are reduced 

 as nearly us possible to a rectangular form ; and this is done by means 

 of a tool called a kerel, pointed at one end and flat at the other, with 

 which the irregular jarta are knocked off. The blocks are then usually, 

 by means of cranes which are capable of being moved from place to 

 place, raised upon trucks or low carriages; and these are drawn, 

 generally on iron railways, to the quays or wharfs where the stone is 

 put on ship-board. A curious account is given by Vitruvius of an 

 unsuccessful attempt which was made by an engineer named Paconiua 



