.134 Reviews — Canadian Building Stones. 



a length, compared with the earlier volumes, which is somewhat out 

 of proportiou to the relative importance of the building stone 

 industry in the thi'ee Provinces under consideration ". 



In the opening chapter the author gives a general account of the 

 building stones of the three provinces, and briefly explains the 

 nature of the physical tests to which the several samples have been 

 subjected in order to ascertain their suitability for the purpose and 

 their capacity to withstand weathering. The determinations made 

 included the specific gravity, weight per cubic foot, porosity, ratio of 

 absorption, coefficient of saturation, crushing tests (dry, vret, and 

 frozen), transverse and shearing strength tests, and corrosion, 

 drilling, and chiselling tests. In the corrosion test cubes of the 

 stone under investigation were suspended in water through which 

 carbonic acid gas and oxygen were passed, and the whole operation 

 took four weeks, the water being changed twice weekly. Mr. MacLean, 

 who was in charge of this part of the investigation, discovered that 

 the rate of solution of limestone was materially affected by the 

 pressure maintained in the containing bottle, and he devised special 

 apparatus for keeping the pressure constant. The provinces in 

 question do not as yet yield much diversity of building stone, the 

 present supply being confined to the mottled limestones of Tyndall in 

 Manitoba and the Paskapoo Sandstones of Alberta, but there are 

 possibilities of other occurrences of these stones being worked as 

 soon as the demand justifies it. The eastern ranges of the Pocky 

 Mountains, which come within the scope of the book, cannot be 

 drawn upon for building stone to any great extent, because the 

 limestone of which they chiefly consist is so hard and shattered as to 

 be unsuitable for the purpose. 



A concise discussion of the geology of the region is the subject of 

 the following chapter. As is well known, its most conspicuous 

 physical character is found in the great prairie plains which stretch 

 from the rocky district of the Manitoba lakes and Lake Winnipeg on 

 the east to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains on the west, and 

 building stone can only be looked for on the margin of the plains 

 owing to the thickness of the soil over the whole of them. In the 

 remaining eight chapters the various rocks furnishing building stones 

 are considered in detail, commencing with the limestones and sand- 

 stones, and passing on to the miscellaneous rocks and ornamental 

 stones ; while the physical characters of the stones and statistical 

 data are tabulated in appendices. 



The Tyndall Limestone has been used for such important buildings 

 as the Parliament buildings at Pi,egina and the Post Office at Moose 

 Jaw in Saskatchewan, and the Post Office at Lethbridge in Alberta ; 

 while the Paskapoo Sandstone has been selected for the Court House 

 at Lethbridge, the Poyal Bank at Medicine Hat, the Court House and 

 Parliament buildings at Edmonton, Knox Church, the Land Titles 

 building. City Hall, and the Carnegie Public Library at Calgary, in 

 the province of Alberta. Photographs of all these buildings are 

 included among the numerous illustrations. There are also six 

 plates in colour showing sections of limestone, granite, and sand- 

 stone. 



