The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1909-10-26
THE ABUSE OF STONE.
Quarrymen have Learned Not to Stun 1t
Nor to Use It When Green.


stone as building material has been
the victim Of a whole lot Of ignorance
and carelessness II Is only a few years
since the chief thing asked Of a quarry
man was to knock the biggest piece Of
stone out Of the ground at the least
cost
Immense blocks were broken loose by
tremendous charges Of explosives, aud
then these masses of rock were split into
sizes convenient for handling. II the
stone showed no visible cracks or starts
and held together under the cutting and
dressing it was thought TO be in prime
condition.
Quarryman and builder were intensely
surprised if stone handled IN this way
went to pieces and disintegrated in a
few years after having been set IN a
building. Until a more serious study Of
economic geology was made, it was not
recognized that heavy blasting or even
severe blows from slcdgcs had tens
deney to weaken the cementing material
that holds together the rock grains or
crystals in any stone.
Now no quarryman would think Of
placing on the market d stone that had
been stunned Even IN ontinenta Eu-
rope, which is Away backward ia dis
oarding old methods and adopting mod
ern improvements, this lesson has been
learned.
It was formerly the practice to blast
out stone, even IN marble quarries The
effect upon the delicate materials, espe-
eialiy such marbles IS were brecciated
or with elaborate tapestried patterns
loaased, Of course, hy the mingiing Of
different elements) end readily he iraaQ-
ined. This is why the old marble quar-
ries Of Europe present remarkable spall
banks, the debris often preventing nee
essary development work
Slowly but surely the wastful powder
man il being displaced By Che wire saw
which cuts the stone from its native bed
without iniuring its texture In the
slightest, and the chaDneing machine,
which cuts the stone into rectangular
blocks with the minimum Of waste
without stunning the stone.
Still another great improvement has
come ii knowledge Of the necessity
for proper season Of stone. While the
presence, to a greater or less degree, Of
interstitial water on sap in all stone
has been recognized for century, the
part that II plays in che weathering Of
stone was unknown until comparatively
recently
The quarryman and stoneworker found
that 4 stone fresh from It's bed and full
Of quarry water was easy to work and
that 1t grew harder when the sap had
dried out. Hence stone was frequently
cut and set III i building before it had
seasoned and thus fell q victim to frost.
Now the architect and the builder
know the danger IN certain varieties Of
green stone and provide against 1t In
their specifications No one expecting a.
satisfactory and durable job would think
OF using unseasoned timber, and similar
safeguards are called tor in the use
oil stone
Much Of the defective stonework of
the past was caused by a neglect OF a
fundamental principle in stone masonry,
the need to set all stone OF markedly
stratifed or ANIMATED formation on its
natural bed As such stone splits most
readily along the plane Of stratiiication,
the easiest way was to split 1t up for
thin ashlar and set it upright in the
wall but CHS quality Of cleavage nat
urally caused it to scale of as moisture
and frost got Judgment. While 4 dis
regard Of this preeaution is responsible
for large portion Of the defective stone
work Of the last hftS years the techni.
cal magazine Stone says that this error
has played no part in recent work.