Kinahan — On Granite and Hetamorphic Rocks. 171 



Some of the granitic and eruptive rocks are eminently suitable 

 for rubble work and walling ; others for paving-setts, or kerbs or 

 quoins ; others for cut stone purposes ; and the more valuable for 

 polished work in monuments, pillars, slabs, chimney-pieces, &c. 



Granites have been used both in ancient and modern times, 

 and when well selected are an excellent and durable material. 

 But it is evident that builders have frequently looked more to the 

 easy and rapid completion of their work than to its durability, as 

 has already been pointed out (vol. v., page 511) in reference to sand- 

 stone. This employment of undurable materials is instanced in 

 many of the early ecclesiastical buildings and others in or margin- 

 ing the Leinster granite range, and in the more modern buildings 

 in Dublin, for example, where good cut-work has lost all its 

 sharpness on account of the stone disintegrating under the action 

 of the weather. In Dublin this is not now so observable as it 

 was forty or fifty years ago ; as since then many of these 

 crumbling edifices have been removed or re-faced. Well-selected 

 stones have, however, stood the test of time in both ancient and 

 modern structures, to which attention will be hereafter directed. 



From time immemorial the granite boulders have been very 

 generally used for various purposes — as for instance in the erection 

 of the megalithic monuments and structures, especially in the so- 

 called cromleacs, and in the fabrication of the builauns, or stone 

 basins, found in many places. 



[The builauns are usually more common in the neighbourhood of the ancient 

 ecclesiastical settlements than elsewhere. They were probably employed in various 

 ways • e.g. as mortars in which to bruise or crush corn, apples, &c, as baptismal fonts, 

 &c. Some that are built into the walls of the churches may have been either fonts or 

 holy water stoups. At Roscam, near Galway, the late Dr. William King found a 

 peculiar oval pestle that exactly fitted one of the neighbouring builauns, and may 

 possibly have been made for it. , In the counties Clare, Limerick, Tipperary, Queen's 

 County, Wexford, and Wicklow, where some years ago much cider and perry was made 

 for exportation, we find many of the cup-querns that were used for crushiug the apples 

 or pears, wrought out of granite erratics. In modern times, in Leinster especially, 

 boulder stones have been extensively worked up into monuments, gate-posts, steps, 

 sills farm-rollers, &c. Erratics from the Leinster granite occur in the counties Kil- 

 kenny, Carlow, Kildare, Dublin, Wicklow, and Wexford ; while in the King's Co., 

 Tipperary Galway, and Mayo, the granite blocks seem to come principally from the 

 country north of Galway Bay ; such have been found even in the counties of Cork 

 and Waterford. Elsewhere in Ireland, according to the published records, the spread 

 of erratics from the granite centres does not seem to be very observable ; but in 

 the neighbourhood of Ramelton, Co. Donegal, fifty years ago, there were numerous 



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