218 BERTHA'S VISIT TO HER 



Penrhyn Arms, Bangor. 



2\st. Well, mamma, we have been to those 

 famous quarries^ and they are indeed wonderful. 

 But to me the most striking thing about them is, 

 that such pitfdigious excavations should have 

 been made in so short a period ; for we were at- 

 tended by an old man who actually remembers 

 the first opening of the large quarry. It also 

 seemed astonishing that they should have been 

 the work of men who appeared so diminutive, 

 when compared with the huge blocks of slate 

 round which I saw them clustering and bustling 

 like a colony of little ants round a straw. 



Every thing is done here by a kind of task 

 work. A piece of the rock is bought by a party 

 of men, who agree to work together ; they con- 

 vert it into as great a number of slates as they 

 can, and the overseer purchases them at stated 

 prices. Their first operation is to blast off a 

 large block: this is done by making a round hole 

 about two or three feet deep, with a pointed iron 

 crow ; a pound of gunpowder is then poured in, 

 and the hole is rammed full of clay or broken 

 slate. A thick wire, which was kept in the hole 

 while the ramming was going on, is now with- 

 drawn, and a straw filled with fine powder is in- 

 troduced into its place with a bit of match-paper 

 fixed to the upper end. All is now ready a man 

 calls out with a loud voice that he is going to 

 fire the workmen scamper away and hide 



