50 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
constructed with stone from tlie immediate neighbourliood of 
sucli buildings^ apparently without any regard to colour^ strata_, 
or durability_, and hence we frequently see stones of very diffe- 
rent tints indiscriminately placed together in the same elevation, 
some extremely perfect^ others in a very mouldering condition^ as 
in the cases of Wiitby 'Abbey, Bristol Cathedral and King^s 
College Chapel at Cambridge. 
We will now give the substance of Mr. Smithes remarks on 
the various kinds of stone, as the essay itself is in many por- 
tions foreign to our subject, and too lengthy for insertion in a 
complete form. Caen Stone was used very considerably for or- 
namental architecture in the South of England, from the Con- 
quest to the time of Henry VIII ; it does not seem to possess 
advantages over vanous stones of the same character, the pro- 
duce of our own country ; many qualities are found in the same 
district, and even in the same quarry, of variable durability. 
The central Tower of Canterbury Cathedral, St. George's Chapel 
at Windsor and Henry VII. Chapel at Westminster, are all 
built of this, about the same time (between 1472 and 1517,) yet 
the Tower of Canterbury is in much better preservation than 
most structures of the same date, and St. George^s Chapel is by 
no means so much dilapidated as that at Westminster, which 
was restored between 1808 and 1822. 
Mr. Smith is of opinion that so much difference in durability, 
arises much more from the different qualities of the same de- 
scription of stone than from local circumstances. 
When political disputes probably gave rise to the prohibition 
of importing Caen Stone, the rocks nearest the metropoli'^ 
afforded the material for building, and hence Riegate Stone, 
Gatton Stone, Merstham Stone were employed, but there is 
hardly an instance where, having been exposed for twenty or 
thirty years, the surface has not mouldered into thin flakes; 
the greater part of Westminster Abbey was formerly built of 
Godstone Stone. 
