OF SELBORNE. 11 



and runs by the intense heat, and so cases over the whole 

 face of the kiln with a strong vitrified 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 sea- 

 soned, it does not scale. Decent chimney-pieces are worked 

 from it of much closer and finer grain than Portland ; and 

 rooms are floored with it ; but it proves rather too soft for 

 this purpose. It is a freestone, cutting in all directions ; 

 yet has something of a grain parallel with the horizon, and 

 therefore should not be surbedded, but laid in the same 

 position that it grows in the quarry. 1 On the ground 

 abroad this firestone will not succeed for pavements, be- 

 cause, probably, some degree of saltness prevailing within 

 it, the rain tears the slabs to pieces." 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 to a smooth face ; but is 

 very durable : yet, as these strata are shallow and lie deep, 

 large quantities cannot be procured but at considerable ex- 

 pense. Among the blue rags turn up some blocks tinged 

 with a stain of yellow, or rust colour, which seem to be 

 nearly as lasting as the blue ; and every now and then balls 

 of a friable substance, like rust of iron, called rust balls. 

 In Wolmer Forest I see but one sort of stone, called by 



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 Teynton stone. Gr. W. 



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

 grained, and have no interstices. Nothing supports fire like salts ; salt- 

 atone perishes exposed to wet and frost. Plot's Staff", p. 152. G. W. 



