Kinahan — On Irish Marbles and Limestones. 389 



which is in every part of the land, there is marble found in many 

 places, but more about Kilkenny, where not only many houses are 

 built of the same, but whole streets are paved with it. The quarry 

 out of which they have their marble at Kilkenny is not above a 

 quarter of a mile from the town, and belongeth to nobody in parti- 

 cular, lying in common for all the townsmen, who at any time may 

 fetch as much out of it as seemeth good unto them without paying 



anything for it This marble, while it is rude as it cometh 



out of the ground, looketh greyish, but being polished, it getteth a 

 fine brownish colour, drawing somewhat toward the black." 



Boate does not appear to be quite correct in saying it was free, 

 as it would appear to have been for years the subject of a suit in 

 Chancery, between the families of Jacob and Minchin, from both of 

 whom Alderman William Colles took leases in 1737, having a few 

 years previously (about 1730) invented machinery, worked by 

 water-power, for cutting, polishing, and boring the marble ; and 

 since that time his descendants have had the sole use of it. Alder- 

 man Colles' works are mentioned in a Tour in Ireland, by two 

 English gentlemen, a. d. 1748, and in Tighe's Statistical Survey of 

 Kilkenny, published 1802 ; while we learn from a recent inquiry 

 instituted by Professor Henry, M. Seely, Middleburg, Vt. U. S. A., 

 and published by the Middleburg Historical Society, that Colles 

 was the first to apply water power for the polishing and boring 

 of marble, using it for cutting being in part a re-invention, as 

 in the fourth century of the Christian era stones had been sawn 

 by water-power on the river Roen in Germany. 



The Kilkenny marble quarry proper, the " Black Quarry," is 

 •close to the river, near Archer's Grove, and about half a mile S. E. 

 of the town ; this is supposed to be the quarry mentioned by Boate, 

 and has been worked for at least a century and a-half by the 

 Colleses, the great- great- grandfather of the present proprietor 

 having been the founder of the Kilkenny marble works for the 

 manufacture of chimney-pieces, picture frames, tables, and various 

 other articles, by water-power. 



In this quarry there are three varieties : shelly black, pure black, 

 and dark-grey. The shelly black is par excellence " Kilkenny 

 marble," the black, with white shells, being world-famed under 

 that name; and in connexion with it was the curious general 

 belief, that the stones when first procured are perfectly black, the 



