BUILDING AND ORNAMENTAL STONES. 315 



This method is said to have been introduced into Quincy somewhere 

 about 1725-'50, by German emigrants, and, crude as it may seem, was 

 a vast improvement over that used in preparing stone for the construc- 

 tion of King's Chapel, erected in 1749-'54, on the corner of School and 

 Tremont streets, Boston. Here we are told the stone was first heated 

 by building a fire around it and then broken by means of heavy iron 

 balls let fall from a considerable height. 



With such difficulties as these to contend with it is not surprising 

 that the building should have been considered a wonder when com- 

 pleted, and that people coming to Boston from a distance made it a 

 point to see and admire this great structure. The wonder, however, 

 was not that the granite could be broken into shape by such methods, 

 but "that stone enough could be found in the vicinity of Boston fit for 

 the hammer to construct such an entire building. But it seemed to be 

 universally conceded that enough more like it could not be found to 

 build such another." 



After a block is broken from the quarry bed it is trimmed to the 

 desired size and shape by means of a variety of implements, according 

 to the hardness of the stone and the character of the desired finish. 



In dressing granite and other hard stone the tools ordinarily used 

 are the set or pitching chisel, thespalling hammer, pean hammer, bush 

 hammer, hand hammer, chisel, and point. With the set the rough 



general use the author has no means of ascertaining. That none of the above can 

 justly claim to have invented the process is evident from the following: 



" I told thee that I had been informed that the grindstones and millstones were 

 split with wooden pegs drove in, but I did not say that those rocks about this house 

 could be split after that manner, but that I could split them, and had been used to 

 split rocks to make steps, door-sills, and large window cases all of stone, and pig- 

 troughs and water-troughs. I have split rocks 17 feet long and built four houses of 

 hewn stone split out of the rocks with my own hands. My method is to bore the 

 rock about 6 inches deep, having drawn a line from one end to the other, in which 

 I bore holes about a foot asunder, more or less, according to the freeness of the rock ; 

 if it be 3 or 4 or 5 feet thick, 10, 12, or 16 inches deep. The hole should be an inch 

 and a quarter diameter if the rock be 2 feet thick, but if it be 5 or 6 feet thick the 

 holes should be an inch and three-quarters diameter. There must be provided twice 

 as many iron wedges as holes, and one-half of them must be fully as long as the hole 

 is deep and made round at one end, just fit to drop into the hole, and the other half 

 may be made a little longer, and thicker one way, and blunt pointed. All the holes 

 must have their wedges drove together, one after another, gently, that they may 

 strain all alike. You may hear by their ringing when they strain well. Then with 

 the sharp edge of the sledge strike hard on the rock in the line between every wedge, 

 which will crack the rock ; then drive the wedges again. It generally opens in a few 

 minutes after the wedges are drove tight. Then, with an iron bar or long levers, raise 

 them up and lay the two pieces flat and bore and split them in what shape and 

 dimensions you please. If the rock is anything free you may split them as true almost 

 as sawn timber, and by this method you may split almost any rock, for you may add 

 almost any power you please by boring the holes deeper and closer together." 



(From letter of John Bartram to Jared Elliot dated January 24, 1757. See Darling- 

 ton's Mem. of Bartram and Marshall, p. 375.) The precise date at which these four 

 stone houses were built is not stated, but the work above quoted contains an illus- 

 tration of John Bartram's house, near Darby, Delaware County, Pa. This house, 



