Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1843-05-19

extremely soft when first uuarried, but like many
other stones becoming very hard and tough, after
some exposure. This may be fashioned with
great ease into pots, and other hollow ware, and
it bears heat so well, that the poorer peasants in
Sweden and Norway, in the vicinity of the
quarries, form their cooking utensils of it to this
day
Stone appears next 10 have heon used for
building, at first unhcwn, and without mortar.
the interstices being filled with moss or CLAW. and
when this mode no longcr satisfied the demands
of comfort or of taste. The stone. newer came to
the aid Of the mason. and fitted The blocks TO
eoch otbor en- os to mako close ioints without
mortar. This was acoomnlisbed. not by hewinu
all the stones fiat and SQUARE. but. with perverse
and laborious INGENUITY nv cutting in one stone
cavities TO CORRESPOND 10 the proluberances of
another. This mode of building has the advan.
tare Of great soidity, because the corrcspondinr
projections and dcpressions serve as bowels to
bind the courses or rather blocks for the stones
were not vet laid in courses The immense
| labor of this STYLE of masonry and the rugged
appearance of the walls. caused it soon to be
discarded for the plain fashion of square hewn
work, and this, when once adopted, has never
been abandoned The stones used by the an
cicnt builders were sometimes of immense size,
as at Balbec, where some of the blocks are sixty
feet in length, nineteen in breadth, and ten IN
thickness, and therefore imply great skill in
quarrytrg. All the different modes OF detaching
the blocks from the ledge now in use, except
! blasting, were practised by the anclents The
earliest mode IS supposed to have been the tedI-
Gus one Of chisellng the block from the quarry,
by channel cut on all sides of it, but less 'abo-
rious processes were invented at very remote
period Sometimes row Of holes was drilled
ut short distances from each other, and the
blocks split off by thin metal wedges driven
into all the holes, precisely now practIscd in
granite quarrles. In other cases, dry plugs Of
;,,.o ,l,. I'LL lal,,
being wettcd, the swelling of the plugs, some
times aided by the expansive power Of frost,
would burst the rock. Sometimes a line was
traced upon the surface of the ledge, along
which narrow fire was kept up, until the stone
was heated TO n considerable depth. The fire
being then swept off, cold water was poured
along the heated linc and crack was thus pro-
duccd, into which wedges could be driven. The
masses separated from the granite quarries of
Egypt by these various means were sometimes
one hundred feet in length and eight or ten in
breadth, and we have accounts Of some of even
vastly greater dimensions
The Eevntions wore shiIrui rot oniv in souar
inrnnd hcv;inr groritc sondstonc. and ,hc hard
or rocks. ne nornbvrv and basolt bnt in n finer
and much mara d,Aicnlt STYLE Of work The
ohe1isks cb,r,c,rr;s,;c f,,,nr. in Ervrt;ar ar
chi,ccture. and many n,rts of the ,emnles tombs.
and o,bnr strncture: n E,,ynt were scuI,fured
Win hierorivhic inscr;nt,ons the art Of decipher
ratl,.r oh ha; #
FAR cor,rr;ns has hccr recon,l, d;scovor.d The
walls of monv monumcr,s wore covered with
sculpturcs renresontirr n vast VARIETY of sinh.
iec,s. and treoucniIv op = very large scale Ac.
cordinp to Wilkinson the oldest sculntu-cs mr..
in low relief the 6rurcs. thouch raised above the
general surtncc bnin1 # with ,he edres aud
corners rounded off Sunl, or intoolio sc,lptur.
was afterwards introduccd and in many iust1n.
ces. both figures and h;erorlvnbics are in n STYLE
al; % h.;
wrought in relief in a s,nkcn commitment -
The Ervptian SCULPTURES are generally. thouull
not uniformly, of inferior merit in point of de.
sign, but in mechanical exc cution, they leave no.
thing to be desired The hcrorvphcs are usu.
ally executed in style, which to modern stone
cutter would present very serious difficulties -
They are truly and sGuarcly cut, the sides of the
lines being perpcndicular to the face of the ODE
lisk, or other monument, and are often sunk in
the hardest stones as basalt or porphyrv. TO q
depth of more than two inches, the anrlcs. cducs,
and all the minuter parts perfectly finished, and
exhibiting the sharpness of an impression on
wax. The granite of Ervpt thourh softer than
basalt or porphyry, is of extreme hardness II
almost Immediately turns the cdge of the best
steel tools of modern manufacture and no chisel
which Europeans can forge is capable of cuttin .
the stone with such accuracy and precision as the
hierorlyphics and other carving display By
what means then did the Egvptaus execute
WOrKS, winch almost set AT CplanCe the SIKH Ot
modern artizans' We must necessarily believe,
that they possessed some easy process for per.
forming them, for the sculptures and inscriptions
occur in such abundant profnsion, that with any
means now known, the united labour of all the
stone cutters of Europe, for centuries, would not
suffice to produce the carvings of the single city
of Thebes Various explanations have been sug
gested, such as the comparative soitness of newly
quarrcd stone and the probability, that the scul p
tors were in the practice of stunning the stone,
as 1t is called, or beating it with light hammer,
along the line to be scuptured, and thus crush
ing the crystals, before the chsel was applied
The former of these suggestions is dlsproved, by
the well asccrained fact, that additional hero
glyphics were not untrequently sculptured upon
monuments, Il hundred or more years after their
erection, and the process of stunning is not ap-
plicabe to sharply cut and dclicately finished
work. There is good reason to believe, that the
Egyptians used the toothless saw with sand for
simple cutting and it is at least probable that
they employed the revolving drill, with sand or
emery. The finest cuttings might indeed be
finished by this latter process but its tediousness
renders it improbable that it was extensively
adapted. The difficulty is increased by the fact,
believed 10 be well ascertaned, that steel was