﻿OOLITIC LIMESTONE INDUSTRY 



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saw, and its use is said to have reduced the cost of production 

 materially. It is primarily adapted for cut stone work, and can 

 be profitably used only in those mills which do a considerable 

 amount of such work. 



More important are the changes in the kind of power used. 

 At first everything was done by hand with great labor. Nowa- 

 days, the hand work is usually confined to the clearing up of 

 spalls and dirt, occasionally also to stripping or a part of it, and 

 to the scabbling, or rough squaring of the blocks with a sort of 

 pick. Steam, for a long time the only power used, is now being 

 in part supplanted in many quarries and mills by compressed air 

 and electricity. Electricity is very generally employed as the 

 motive power in the overhead travelers or cranes. Compressed 

 air is being used in place of steam in the drills and channelers, 

 and where applied has saved the service of one man on each 

 channeler, has reduced the amount of coal required, and has 

 tended to lessen the responsibility and at the same time the wages 

 of the machine runner. 



The introduction of improved machinery, while decreasing 

 the cost of production, has not had the effect on labor usually 

 observed in such cases, owing to the normal scarcity of labor 

 in the oolitic district. So far as is known, the introduction of 

 improved machinery has in no case resulted in non-employment, 

 but the labor thus supplanted has almost immediately been re- 

 absorbed into the industry. 



Commercial Features of the Industry. The forms of business 

 organization in the oolitic limestone industry roughly register 

 its growth from a small, local industry to one of national im- 

 portance. Until within the last two decades, perhaps, during 

 which the industry has attained its real importance, the indi- 

 vidual or partnership type of organization was practically uni- 

 versal. Gradually the inefficient companies have been weeded 

 out, while the more efficient ones, almost without exception, have 

 been incorporated. Today only one or two of the firms actually 

 engaged in the industry are not incorporated. 



The conditions of the quarrying industry are such as to give 

 some special advantages to the large producer. Often there are 

 slight variations in the texture of the stone at different levels ; 

 and the large concerns, operating several openings in the same 

 bed, may quite readily secure stone of uniform texture for a 

 particular contract. Thus they have an important advantage in 



