siderable expense. Among the blue rags turn up 

 some blocks tinged with a stain of yellow or 

 rust colour, which seem to be nearly as lasting 

 as the blue ; and every now and then balls of a 

 friable substance, like rust of iron, called rust 

 balls. 



In Wolmer Forest, I see but one sort of stone, 

 called by the workmen sand or forest-stone. This is 

 generally of the colour of rusty iron, and might 

 probably be worked as iron ore ; is very hard and 

 heavy, and of a firm, compact texture, and composed 

 of a small roundish crystalline grit, cemented to- 

 gether by a brown, terrene, ferruginous matter ; will 

 not cut without difficulty, nor easily strike fire with 

 steel. Being often found in broad flat pieces, it makes 

 good pavement for paths about houses, never be- 

 coming slippery in frost or rain ; is excellent for dry 

 walls, and is sometimes used in buildings. In many 

 parts of that waste it lies scattered on the surface of 

 the ground, but is dug on Weaver's Down, a vast 

 hill on the eastern verge of that forest, where the 

 pits are shallow and the stratum thin. This stone is 

 imperishable. 



From a notion of rendering their work the more 



elegant, and giving it a finish, masons chip this stone 



into small fragments about the size of the head of a 



large nail, and then stick the pieces into the wet 



mortar along the joints of their freestone walls : this 



embellishment carries an odd appearance, and has 



13 



