PEACTICAL PAPERS—ARTIFICIAL STONE. 
867 
AKTIFICIAL STONE. 
From the Official Report of 
A. F. BARNARD, LL. D., 
United States Commissioner to Paris Exposition of 1867. 
More remarkable than the agglomerated hetons^ or than any 
other form of artificial building material yet invented, is the 
unique composition of analogous character exhibited by Mr. 
Frederick Eansome of London. This material is equally 
adapted to heavy constructions and to objects of art and orna¬ 
ment. Its strength is very extraordinary, greatly exceeding 
that of the sandstones and of most of the harder natural rocks 
in common use for architectural purposes, to some of which it 
nevertheless exhibits a striking resemblance in appearance.^ 
From the nature of the process of manufacture, it may be va¬ 
riously colored so as to represent the darker marbles ; or, in 
case white sand i^ selected as the basis, it may be made entirely 
colorless. Any kind of clean sand may be employed to form 
the bulk of the composition. The cement by which the parti¬ 
cles are bound together, when the process of transformation is 
complete, is silicate of lime. A description of the interesting 
process, by the application of which, out of the most incoherent 
materials, great masses of solid rock or ornamental objects of 
every variety of pattern are produced in the works of Mr. 
Eansome in the course of a few hours, was published during 
the continuance of the exposition in Mr. Colburn’s London 
joifrnal of engineering, and this account so fully exhausts the 
subject, and is at the same time so lucid and satisfactory, that 
it is here substituted instead of the notice intended originally 
to occupy this place : 
