LITTLE GADDESDEN. 297 



broken loose, are used, partly to be carried on to the roads 

 to fill up the deep wagon and cart-ruts ; partly they are 

 carried home by some farmers, brayed into fine dust 

 mixed with water, and worked into a cement, bruk, of 

 which the floors of malt houses and ' lodges,' or the part 

 of the barns where they thrash corn, are made, because 

 this, thus prepared, binds very strongly together. I asked 

 the carls whether lime can be burned from this stone ? 

 They all answered no, and added that one may burn it 

 as long as he likes, but he will never make lime of it — 

 which I leave there. Likewise they said that it is no 

 good for laying as a floor, because it softens and is re- 

 duced to a sediment by water which comes to stand upon 

 it [T. I. p. 294]. The tools and other things which the 

 miners use here at their work are the following : — Inside 

 the mine, where the stone is hewn loose, there are used 

 only a pick, iron-wedges, and a mallet, hacka, jarn- 

 viggar, och klubba. The picks or pickaxes, hac- 

 koma eller yxorna, exactly resemble the picks which 

 we use in Sweden to hack mill-stones with, only that 

 these English ones are very sharp, and are often 

 sharpened. The iron-wedges and mallets are of the 

 ordinary kinds. They avail themselves of the before 

 described (p. 290, orig. 294 above) wagon to carry the larger 

 stones out of the mine ; but small bits are carried out 

 with a wheel-barrow. All the labour in the mine is per- 

 formed with a light, because not the least daylight can 

 get to the places where they work, but when the light is 

 put out or taken away, it is pitch dark. After they have 

 got the stone to the place they wish, they hew it with the 

 aforenamed picks, of which some are larger, some smaller, 

 some are broader, others narrower. With these the 

 stone is hewn tolerably even and flat on the sides. If 

 anyone wishes to have a very broad stone, or any other 

 narrower stone in half, a long saw is used, with which 



