The Touch of Time on Building Materials 
takes place which can only be remedied by 
re-cutting the stone. 
The blue sandstone known as Warsaw 
stone is not yet in general use; but a limited 
experience indicates that it the stone is prop¬ 
erly seasoned before it is used in the building, 
there will be no disappointment in its dura¬ 
bility or appearance. 1'he freshly cut stone 
darkens rapidly for a short time, and then 
seems to remain of a bluish gray color, uni¬ 
form and agreeable. 
Of all the sandstones, the fine-grained 
Pictou, N. S., stone is the one which looks 
the best first and last; but this stone is rarely 
seen in the business districts, and our knowl¬ 
edge of it is in association with pressed brick 
in the fronts of costly city residences. Its 
characteristic color, a greenish yellow, deepens 
slightly with time, and belt courses of this 
stone do become streaked with black; but 
taken in the mass, a portico of Pictou sand¬ 
stone looks better than ever after forty years 
and gives promise of continued improve¬ 
ment. It is a pity that this valuable material 
is now so hard to get. 
Eastern Massachusetts is not friendly to 
marble in the open air. The Lee marble is 
glittering white when new, but both that and 
Carrara marble at once begin to assume a 
garb of sober gray. There is no marble 
that grows yellow with time in our New 
England climate, and the gray that succeeds 
the dazzling whiteness of the new stone is 
not a warm but a cold gray. The so-called 
statuary marble, more frequently found in 
cemeteries than in buildings, retains its white¬ 
ness much longer than the more open grained 
less costly marbles. It is too early to speak 
definitely of the wearing qualities of Ten¬ 
nessee marbles, but it seems likely that, be¬ 
ginning with less brilliancy, they may weather 
more agreeably to the eye than white marbles 
of any kind. Of the rich foreign marbles 
so largely imported for interior work few 
will stand exposure to the weather, and 
these, like granite, will hold their color while 
losing their polish. 
It is hard to speak temperately of lime¬ 
stone, for a more disappointing material can 
scarcely be found. The Indiana variety has 
come into very general use all over the coun¬ 
try within a comparatively few years, and its 
lightness, cheapness, and especially the facility 
with which it may be enriched with carving 
have deluded alike both the architects and 
the public. Deluded is the word, for there is 
not within our knowledge one single instance 
of Indiana limestone exposed to the weather 
that has gained in appearance in fifteen 
years, or even held its own. "This stone 
looks its very best when the building is ready 
for acceptance; once paid for, it is a question 
not of years but only of months or of weeks 
when it becomes so streaked, stained and 
discolored as to be, not old, but shabby. In 
unbroken surfaces, finely cut, we have known 
limestone to change gradually from cream 
white to dull gray, remaining the while in 
harmonious contrast to adjoining brickwork; 
but taking our original standard, we assert 
that there is no building in which limestone 
is used that we would not gladly see restored 
to its original newness, if this could be at¬ 
tained without expense. 
Slate is a material that will vary much or 
little according to the quality. Lew build¬ 
ing materials, if any, are so little affected by 
time as the best quality of Brownville slate, 
which in color is one of the darkest slates 
quarried, and remarkably uniform. Satis¬ 
factory uniformity of color can also be found 
in red slates from New York State. These 
seem to acquire a slightly purplish tinge after 
a few years’ exposure. 'The best of green 
slates also are practically unvarying, but 
every architect must have noticed how inferior 
black slate fades from a grayish blue almost 
to a yellow gray, a condition state which is 
decidedly worse than its first. It is oidy the 
best of red slates that can be said to improve. 
Anyone attempting a pattern in colored slates 
should make sure that the black slates are of 
the very best. 
To pass from natural stones to artificial, 
cement and concretes of cement and marble, 
or cement and granite, are almost untried in 
the external architecture of the region we are 
considering, but we have had a considerable 
experience of concrete in sidewalks and of 
roughcast as a wall covering. With concrete 
the difficulty has been not about its color, 
which is satisfactory, tending to fade with 
time, but rather with its capacity for absorp¬ 
tion and the necessity of allowing for expan¬ 
sion and contraction. Concrete sidewalks are 
now laid in large slabs four or five feet square, 
86 
