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House iff Garden 
THE TOUCH OF TIME ON BUILDING MATERIALS 
By J. RANDOLPH COOLIDGE, Jr. 
T O build so that our work shall grow old 
gracefully is a worthy object, attainable 
only by study and observation. Such 
observation must take account of natural con¬ 
ditions in each locality for which a building 
is planned. Old marble is beautiful in Sicily, 
sordid in New England. Eight colored brick 
will stay clean in the country but not in 
Chicago or Pittsburg. It is the purpose of 
this article to study the building materials 
used in Eastern Massachusetts, and to lay 
the foundation for similar observations else¬ 
where. The underlying principle is this: 
a building looks well and its materials wear 
well in appearance so long as most persons 
of educated taste would not replace it by a 
new one if they could do so for nothing. 
Of building stones used in Eastern Mas¬ 
sachusetts granite is the best wearing, then 
come sandstone, marble and limestone in the 
order named. Slate is in a class by itself 
and will be mentioned presentlv. Granite is 
preeminent because it acquires with time 
only a darker shade of its original color, a 
tint not disagreeable in itself and pretty 
evenly distributed. Quincy granite, indeed, 
under adverse conditions, darkens in the 
course of fifty years to a smudgy gray, ap¬ 
proaching black. Concord granite under 
favorable conditions retains its or'ginal pale 
cold grayness for almost as long a period. 
Between these extremes, Milford, Stony 
Creek, Deer Isle, Dedham and other granites 
hold intermediate places. The only ones 
that we have found unpleasantly discolored 
are certain Cape Ann granites having an 
excessive amount of iron in them. Granites 
like Stony Creek or Connecticut show a cer¬ 
tain warmth of color when fresh, and retain 
this warmth, in a measure, while darkening; 
but it is our experience that the beautiful 
pink Milford granite loses most of its original 
special tint within six or eight years and 
looks very much like ordinary Milford of 
the same age. In a smoky district we find 
rock-faced granite much darker than finely 
cut or moulded work in the same building. 
Phis may be because the rains wash clean the 
moulded courses, but do not dislodge all the 
dirt from the quarry-faced stones. The im¬ 
perviousness of granite has made it hitherto 
impossible to counterfeit the seam-faced rock, 
and architects specifying seam-faced granite 
should bear in mind the difficulty of pro¬ 
curing stone with two adjoining faces of the 
same characteristic color. 
1 n the case of any given granite, the quarry¬ 
faced stone will darken the most quickly. 
Pointed and finely cut work change relatively 
less; and a polished surface retains its color, 
at least when clean, but loses its polish, 
which is perhaps fortunate. On the whole 
we prefer a rough pointed surface to any 
other finish. 
The best of brownstone weathers almost 
imperceptibly. When laid at an angle to its 
natural bed, or carved or moulded, the sur¬ 
face often disintegrates and flakes off in 
thirty to forty years, certain varieties of the 
stone showing much less resistance than 
others. The two houses on Fifth Avenue, 
New York, built by William El. Vanderbilt 
nearly twenty-five years ago in a favored 
neighborhood, look to-day almost exactly like 
new buildings. They do not look worse, but 
neither do they look any better through lapse 
of time. The same thing is true of street 
upon street of brownstone fronts in New 
York and Boston, dating back forty years. 
The red sandstone from Worcester and 
Maynard wears much less uniformly,- ad¬ 
joining blocks often showing great difference 
in color in the course of years, and giving 
wall surfaces a spotty appearance that is far 
from pleasing. Still worse is the case with 
the buff sandstones from Amherst, Ohio, 
and elsewhere. We have known these to be 
so blackened in the course of twenty-five 
years as to be scarcely recognizable. In its 
earlier period a building of Amherst or Berea 
sandstone becomes richer and mellower in 
appearance, but this improvement does not 
continue more than fifteen or twenty years; 
after that a gradual and uneven darkening 
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