100 TEAK-BOOK OF FACTS. 



of fearful decomposition. The stone turns to powder, and in some 

 cases, I understand, large masses have fallen down from actual decay. 

 " I really look upon this accident as a national calamity. If it can- 

 not be stayed, but goes on, there is no alternative whatever but to 

 cut out every decayed stone, carve another, and put the new one in 

 the place of the old. The expense of this process would be enormous ; 

 and with what material is it to be done? Can we depend on any 

 beds of dolomite, or must we have recourse to Portland stone ? 

 About the choice and durability of the latter there would be no diffi- 

 culty ; but Portland stone becomes rapidly white, and dolomite turns 

 brown, and so every step of the decay would become marked with 

 colour, and the building become a disgrace. 



" A few words will dispose of the present state of the question and 

 the expedients proposed. Buckingham Palace is painted from a 

 similar misfortune to that I have already explained ; and we paint 

 our stucco- fronted houses, and occasionally our stone porticos. Of 

 course all oily coatings, such as paints, rapidly yield to the sun and # 

 wind, and the covenant in our leases, ' that we should paint all ex- 

 ternal work now painted with two or three coats of oil paint every 

 three years,' shows our universal experience on that point. From 

 the nature of things, no oily or fatty mixtures can lie permanently 

 exposed to the atmosphere. What then 1 Scieuce steps in and 

 shows us tb-itfltnts, hard, indestructible, and apparently imperishable, 

 are dissolved in nature in hot water containing alkalis, as in Iceland, 

 and may be easily dissolved by ait in hot water and caustic alkali ; 

 and it was immediately seen that if we could get decaying stones to 

 imbibe, firstly, this solution, and then chymically to harden it again, 

 the problem was solved. Flint, as our readers know, is technically 

 'silica,' whence the term invented for this process, ' silicated.' 



" Fuchs, in Munich, was the first who turned his attention to this 

 suggestion, followed by Kuhlmann, in Paris ; and about the same 

 time by Mr. Kansome, of Ipswich, who has patented his application, 

 the patent applying to a double decomposition, which he alleges he 

 has discovered. Mr. Szerelmey followed: his process he keeps a 

 secret ; but Professor Faraday states that some bituminous substance 

 is mixed and introduced at some part of the process ; but, with this 

 difference, I believe it to be chyinically the same as the ordinary 

 method. There is no doubt of the bitumen : for, being in attendance 

 at committees of the House last Session, the smell of bitumen was 

 complained of while the workmen were occupied in the Becond court 

 at the back of the Select Committee-rooms. For this additional pro- 

 cess, or composition, Mr. Szerelmey introduces the term 'sopissa,' 

 and calls his process ' silicata BOpUtsa, 1 and proposes to apply it to 

 bricks, cements, wood, &c. The word ' zopissa' is an unusual one, 

 though Jliffffa, orlliVra, 'pitch,' is, of course, a well known Creek 

 word. This difficulty sent me to Lidddl «»</ 8 mary. 



They give the word under the authority of Diotcorides. 1 then 

 turned to Sttphem, and there I found all about it, and extracts from 

 oridet and Pliny relating to the substance called sopissa by the 

 Greeks. As I write, as I said at the outset, simply to make the 



