The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-12-23
I'LL DONE BY HAND WORK
why CARVING ON NEW FEDERAL
BUILDING TAKES
TIME
IS OF NO USE
Intricate and Delicate Designs Must
BE LabOriOusIy Hevn Out of
the Hard Granite by
Skilled Men.

POSSIBLY no one thing connected with
the erection of st. PauPs mammoth fed
eraI and postoffice building has excited
more comment from passers-by than the
TOUR or five men, who, perched on the
dizzy heights above, and protected from
the winds and cold by canvas screens
have daily toiled and hammered in their
work of chiseling out the designs that
forms the granite cornice and fretWork
which surrounds the building.
For months these men have been thus
employed, and as out of curiosity the
pedestrian stops and continues his ex-
pIoratlons around the building he be-
gins to conjecture as to how long it will
take to complete the job. Foot by foot
the men employed eat into the hard gran
lite, and with chisel ana maIIet form the
beautiful and intricate designs that will
be as enduring as the ages. It is slow
work, however, and the one interested
fails in his imagination of selecting a
time when their presence will only be
memory.
The thought that first comes, and it is
common one to the thousands who have
traversed the thorOughfares ENCOMPASS
Ing the building, why has not ma
chinery been invented to take the place
of these men who do the work? Other
things more intricate have been master
ed. So it has, but if you ask the oblig-
ing foreman in charge he will tell you
that there are machines for lust such
work, but they are not satisfactory, and
In consequence the government demands
that the work be done by hand. Then
again the designs are SO many that the
cost necessary to make a machine ap-
plicable to each would eat up any profits
that would accrue.
Granite is a refractory substance and
it takes an artisan of skill to master its
humors, and for this reason intricate ma
chinery is avoided and the work turned
over to man who has studied its ma
ture. The drill or chisel, a tool whose
impact against the hardest substance in
stone known, granite, is brought about
by the use of compressed air is used to
D great extent, but where delicate work
IS necessary the mallet and ordinary
chisel is brought into reuuisition The
air chisel, or drill, as some are wont to
call it, is a wonderful tool. it's lightning
like tap, tap against the hard stone re-
ducing in a short time, to a smoothness
and level little short of the surface of
glass, but it fails where the design is
ornate and delicacy of touch is neces-
sary.
At the heights which these men work
1T cannot be readily be brought into use
and resort naturally has to be had to the
only one sure method available hand
work. That the work may not be inter-
rupted by the unsightly seams or badly
set stone, the walls are first completed.
and then the designs worked out on their
unbroken surface. This is the practice
in the erection of all buildings of a SINH
lar class and style.
Many long month will intervene be-
fore the st. Paul building is in a state
of final completion, and the five or more
white-capped and dust-covered workmen.
who daily WELD the chisel and maIlet in
an effort to beautify its exterior finish.
viii know no rest until their task is
completed.