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NORTH SHORE BREEZE and: Reminder 
Cape Ann as a Tourist’s Haven 
The Granite Quarries at Rockport 
BY 
ATINETY YEARS AGO the first stone was quarried 
on Cape Ann; today hundreds of acres are needed 
to carry on a business which is constantly enlarging. 
In those ninety years great holes have been blasted 
into the very bowels of the earth, some of these quarries 
being from 100 to 150 and 200 feet in depth. 
To many these quarries seem ugly, and perhaps from 
one standpoint they are, but to one who is looking for 
beauty in everything the quarries of Cape Ann have much 
to appeal to his sensitive nature. The very bigness, the very 
industry necessary to make such deep holes has a sug- 
gestion of strength and power, which always have a beauty 
of their own. Leet 
We are told in pamphlets issued by tourist compan- 
ies, and by lecturers, of the beautiful colorings in the 
Grand Canyons of the Colorado, and often through re- 
productions of paintings of this wonderful place we are 
able to see for ourselves that Nature has painted the cliffs 
with her brightest colors. It has never occured to many 
that the rocky sides of the granite quarries show colors 
which also would require of an artist a considerable 
feeling for richness and saturation of color. A Monet 
would find here a problem of light and color, a Millet 
would find labor glorified, a Brangwyn, motifs for decor- 
ive panels. | 
me Standing on the stone bridge, half-way between 
Rockport and Pigeon Cove and looking into the pit of 
the first quarry started on the Cape, one wonders what 
has become of all the stone quarried in the last ninety 
years. In another article we will tell of the history of 
these quarries and shall then see that the use of granite 
has been very great and that, being the best for building 
purposes cut in America, it is in constant demand. 
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THE GRANITE QUARRIES, PIGEON COVE 
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W. LESTER STEVENS. 
A small locomotive is hauling some cars of stone to 
be shipped to Philadelphia or New York. How it puffs 
and snorts with the weight of the oblong blocks! Over 
there a huge stone is being lifted out of the pit by a der- 
rick which seems hardly strong enough for the task. 
Notice -how tiny the men look; hardly larger than ants. 
Here and there are sheds, some of them used as engine 
houses, some in which are powerful pumps to force the 
water from the pits, some used as tool sheds. What a 
variety of noises, the puffing of the locomotive, the blow- 
ing off of boilers, the r-rrr-r of the steam drills! ‘A 
horn ig blown and before we can ascertain for what pur- 
pose, boom! the air is full of smoke; look! quite a large 
chip of rock is hurled hundreds of feet into the air! 
Hundreds of tons of granite are often blown out by one 
blast. The picture: is it not one of battle, man’s conquest 
of the earth? 
But the picture is more than that; the beauty of the 
coloring, the beauty that would appeal to an artist or poet 
makes a picture that takes away some of the feeling that 
“man marks the earth with ruin.” 
This quarry is only one and the others are no less 
full of appeal to lovers of beauty but to successfully ex- 
plore these quarries it will be necessary to make several 
visits in order to learn just what the industry has meant 
to Cape Ann. 
In this first article an attempt has been made only 
to see the quarries in a geneal way. In a succeeding 
article we will explore them more carefully, will trace the 
growth of the industry and will watch each succeeding 
operation necessary to prepare the stone for use as pave- 
ments in city streets, as monuments or as blocks to be 
used in. the construction of bridges or skyscrapers. 
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