234 FREESTONE. 
as from its great durability, it is peculiarly esteemed 
for buildings. It is also formed into cisterns and trough^ 
of various kinds ; into pillars for supporting corn ricks ; 
into rolling stones ; and into grinding stones for cutlers, 
edge-tool makers, and workers in polished steel. Pa- 
viori flags, or the stones used for the paving of foot- 
paths, yards, kitchens, and out-houses, are generally 
flat pieces of freestone. 
Scythestones, or stones for the sharpening of scythes 
upon, are made of freestone. Considerable numbers of 
these are wrought in Derbyshire; and the dexterity that 
is displayed in cleaving and forming them is somewhat 
remarkable. The workmen use sharp-pointed picks, 
several very small wedges, and a hammer. A proper 
block of stone being selected, two or three of these 
small wedges are set in a row, by gentle blows of the 
hammer. These blows are successively repeated till 
the stone splits. The wedges are then set in a straight 
line into the face of the piece split off, and the stone is- 
cleft again in that direction. Jn this manner the sub- 
divisions are continued, until a piece remains of size to 
make two scythestones, each an inch and a half square, 
and about twelve inches long. This the workman holds 
in his left hand, nearly upright; with the point of his 
pick he traces a deep nick down the middle of first one 
side and then the other ; and then by a slight blow of 
his pick he separates it, into two, so dexterously, that not 
more than three or four in a hundred are broken in the 
cleaving. Such stones as are intended for round rub- 
bers, are first reduced into an octagonal shape by the 
point of the pick, and then handed over to women and 
boys, who grind or rub them in a notch formed in a 
hard stone, until they are of the requisite shape. The 
square ones are finished by being ground on a flat stone* 
Other rocks, belonging to what is called the floetz, or 
flat formation, have been already mentioned, under the 
heads oflime-stone (\4Q), gypsum (192), rock salt (202), 
chalk (141), and coal (217). 
