LITTLE GADDESDEN. 29S 



property that after it has come into the open air it 

 always hardens more and more as it gets older and comes 

 to lie longer in the open day. Hence it is, that as soon 

 as it comes out of the mine or stone-pit, it is worked by 

 the carls, while it is still soft, for any purpose they please 

 and which it can be used for. 



That these chalk hills where this stone is quarried 

 have not been as they are from the world's beginning, the 

 various heterogenea seem to testify, which are often found 

 in hewing in the same, and of which we noted the 

 following : — 



1. Kesballar. Balls of iron pyrites. For the most 

 part round and spherical, uneven on the surface, some- 

 times externally ochre-colored, sometimes shining like a 

 ball of iron pyrites, Svafvel-kes. When they were 

 broken asunder, it was seen that a centre existed nearly 

 in the middle of the stone from which radii proceeded to 

 all sides of the periphery. The carls called them Crow's 

 Gold, that is, Krake-guld, and did not know that they 

 were of any use. When laid in the fire they burned, and 

 emitted strong fumes of sulphur. These lay here and 

 there in the stone. They had a considerable weight, 

 nearly as great as that of a piece of iron of a similar 

 size. 



[T. I. p. 292.J 2. Tra-rotter, roots of trees. The 

 labourers said they sometimes find pieces in this stone 

 of the thickness of a carl's arm, on which not only can 

 the bark be seen and separated from the tree within, 

 but also it is plainly seen that they are small pieces 

 of oaks. Such fragments seldom occur here of more 

 than 1 foot long. I was so lucky as to get here a 

 stone in which such a twig or root lay, which the carls 

 hewed loose, together with a piece of the stone, and gave 

 it me as a rarity. The twig in this stone is about the 

 thickness of a little finger. 



