SLATES. 537 



quarry men, when the demand for stone was slack, employed 

 their time in splitting, dressing, and boring such stone as was 

 available for slates. 



What ridge-tiles were to the clay produce, eaveslates were 

 to their congeners. I find them at los. the hundred in 1594, 

 at New College and All Souls; at nj. a load in 1596, at i6j. 

 a load in 1613, at 2s. id. the quarter in 1614, at 8j. the hundred 

 in 1622, at zs. the score in 1628, and 6d. each in 1640. These 

 were no doubt hewed out of the stone by the workmen. 

 But generally, even in those districts where slate was used, the 

 ridge was tile. 



Tile and slate pins, certainly a bye-product with woodmen, 

 were bought by the bushel at from is. $d. to is. 6d., very 

 numerously, but with so little change of price that I have not 

 thought it worth while to register them. The same is the case 

 with mortar hair, easily procured from the tanners, who carried 

 on their craft in every large town. 



There are a few special entries. Such are the broad paving 

 tile of 1603, the white paving tile of 1610, the painted tile of 

 1621, the hewed tile of 1633, the pavement squares of 1657, 

 and the four-edged brick of 1660. The lowest price of brick 

 in the later period, one which I was obliged to omit from my 

 averages, is an account sent to Houghton by a correspondent 

 stating the particulars of the cost incurred by the builder of 

 a barn at Stratford-on-Avon in 1693. 



The subjoined tables give the averages, annual and decen- 

 nial, of lime by the quarter and the load, of laths by the 

 hundred or bunch, of timber by the ton or load, of board or 

 plank by the hundred superficial feet, of wainscot by the yard, 

 of brick in the brick-building districts by the thousand, of tiles 

 by the thousand, of ridge-tiles or crests by the hundred, of slates 

 by the thousand, and of Oxford brick by the thousand. 



