UNCLE IN ENGLAND. 219 



themselves in the hollows of the rock and he 

 then lights the slow-match, and escapes as fast 

 as he can. I saw several of these explosions, or 

 " shots," as they call them, each of them cracking 

 the rock to a great distance, and carrying up in 

 the air a frightful shower of fragments^ which, my 

 uncle says, reminded him of the stones he saw 

 thrown out of Mount Vesuvius^ in one of the 

 great eruptions. The masses that were cracked 

 by the explosion are now detached with levers and 

 wedges, and broken into pieces of a proper size, 

 which are then split into slates, while the blasters 

 are preparing fresh materials ; so that no one is 

 idle for a moment. 



The names given to the different sizes of slates 

 will amuse you ; they are taken from all ranks of 

 our sex; queens, duchesses, countesses andladies; 

 and each size has its peculiar thickness. I was 

 very much interested by the quickness and ex- 

 pertness with which the splitters did their part 

 of the business : the workman gently drives a 

 chisel, or thin wedge, with his mallet into the 

 edge of the block you see the crack running 

 slowly along and then by a certain motion of 

 the chisel he separates the whole surface as 

 neatly as a carpenter splits a piece of straight 

 deal into laths. I was surprised at seeing some 

 of these thin leaves of slate bending considerably 

 while the splitter was forcing them off; but my 

 uncle saysj that all stones have more or less 



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