FREESTONE. 13 



over the whole face of the kiln with a strong vitri- 

 fied coat like glass, that it is well preserved from 

 injuries of weather, and endures thirty or forty 

 years. When chiselled smooth, it makes elegant 

 fronts for houses, equal in colour and grain to the 

 Bath stone ; and superior in one respect, that, 

 when seasoned, it does not scale. Decent chimney- 

 pieces are worked from it of much closer and finer 

 grain than Portland stone ; and rooms are floored 

 with it ; but it proves rather too soft for this pur- 

 pose. It is a freestone, cutting in all directions ; 

 yet has something of a grain parallel with the ho- 

 rizon, and therefore should not be surbedded, but 

 laid in the same position that it grows in the 

 quarry 1 . On the ground abroad this fire-stone 

 will not succeed for pavements, because, probably, 

 some degree of saltness prevailing within it, the 

 rain tears the slabs to pieces 2 . Though this stone 

 is too hard to be acted on by vinegar ; yet both the 

 white part, and even the blue rag, ferment strongly 

 in mineral acids. Though the white stone will not 

 bear wet, yet in every quarry, at intervals, there 

 are thin strata of blue rag, which resist rain and 

 frost, and are excellent for pitching of stables, 

 paths, and courts, and for building of dry walls 

 against banks ; a valuable species of fencing, much 

 in use in this village, and for mending of roads. 

 This rag is rugged and stubborn, and will not hew 



1 To surbed stone is to set it edgewise, contrary to the 

 posture it had in the quarry, says Dr. Plot, Oxfordsh. p. 77- 

 But surbedding does not succeed in our dry walls ; neither 

 do we use it so in ovens, though he says it is best for Teyn- 

 ton stone. 



2 " Firestone is full of salts, and has no sulphur : must be 

 close-grained, and have no interstices. Nothing supports 

 fire like salts ; saltstone perishes exposed to wet and frost." 

 PLOT'S Staff, p. 152. 



