Brownstone

“ Square-shaped stone, 5 inches in length, 1 inch in breadth, and 5⁄8 inch in thickness, and tapering to a point 5⁄8 inch square; probably a whetstone.
Three bronze basins: one measures 10 inches in diameter, and 4 inches in depth. It is formed of sheet metal, fastened by rivets, with portions of an iron handle. This pot or basin shows several patches or mendings (Fig. 11) .
Fig. 11.—Bronze Basin (height 4 inches) .
Another vessel of bronze measures 12 inches in diameter, and 4 inches in depth. It appears to have been made by hammering it into shape out of one piece of metal. ”

“ Brownies, you know, work when the darkness has put all the world to sleep. What a time they had getting all the things together. Arriving at the spot, some fell to chopping wood, while others mixed the mortar and rigged up the pulleys by which they were to raise the stuff to the roof. How the hammers rang out as they struck the bright little nails. The grindstone went spinning around so fast it hummed quite a tune, as the carpenter sharpened his tools, for the Brownies had so much to do they must work their very fastest. ”

“ At our feet were the clean and well-washed pebbles, borne upward into tiny lines and heaps by the restless surf. A search amongst these would reveal to us the material of the mountain heaps which rose behind and on our right and left; there was schist, conglomerate sandstone, a hard white clay, an ochreish clay containing much iron, polished quartz, &c. Looking out of our tent, we could see a line on each side of us of thick tall reeds, which form something like a hedge between the beach and the cultivated area around Niasanga. ”

“ The pastures at the foot of Browne's Hill were plentifully covered with barberry-bushes, the leaves of which were reddish, and they were hung with a prodigious quantity of berries. From the summit of the hill, looking down a tract of woodland at a considerable distance, [Pg 428] so that the interstices between the trees could not be seen, their tops presented an unbroken level, and seemed somewhat like a richly variegated carpet. The prospect from the hill is wide and interesting; but methinks it is pleasanter in the more immediate vicinity of the hill than miles away. ”

“ I have taken the liberty of naming the stream (to all intents and purposes an important river, though narrow compared with some streams, but down which quite as great a supply of pure water is now running as in the Burdekin) the River Browne after W.J. Browne, Esquire, of Booboorowie, South Australia. Large masses of granite are here in the bed of this river and on its banks, although the ridges close by are composed of very cellular basalt and close-grained sandstone. No mountains visible at all close in any direction. ”

“ Browning's genius. It is essentially the woman-stone, giving out a sympathetic warmth, varying its colors from day to day, as though an index of the heart's barometer. There is the topmost purity of white, blended with the delicate, perpetual verdure of hope, and down in the opal's centre lies the deep crimson of love. The red, the white, and the green, forming as they do the colors of Italy, render the opal doubly like Mrs. Browning. It is right that the woman-stone should inclose the symbols of the "Woman Country." ”

“ Bruno, and as Oberon figures in the traditions of Kensington it is possible that the Bryanstone Square in that district, into which leads Brawn Street, marks the site of another Brownie or Rialobran stone. This Bryanstone district was the home of the Byron family, and the surname Brinsmead implies the existence here or elsewhere a Brin’s mead or meadow.
The Brownies are occasionally known as “knockers,” whence the “knocking stone” which still stands in Brahan Wood, Dingwall, might no doubt be rightly entitled a Brahan, Bryan, or Brownie Stone. ”

“ Sir Thomas Browne gave his son an admirable piece of literary advice. The young son had been travelling in Hungary and proposed to write an account of what he had seen. His father approved the project, but urged him strongly not to trouble himself about the methods of extracting iron and copper from the ores, or with a multitude of facts and statistics. These were matters in which there was no need to be particular. But, he added, his son must on no account forget to give a full description of the "Roman alabaster tomb in the barber's shop at Pesth." ”

“ A brown stone, in no respect presenting anything by which it shall be distinguished from other rude stones around it, is found, upon close examination, to possess the power of drawing light particles of iron towards it. If this stone is placed upon a table, and iron filings are thrown lightly around it, we discover that these filings arrange themselves in symmetric curves, proceeding from some one point of the mass to some other ”

“ On approaching the foot of the hills on the road from Perth to York, we pass at once from the horizontal brown sandstone to a steep slope of granite, above this to another of greenstone, and then to granite again. The surface of this plateau of rock, here about 800 feet above the sea, was gently undulating, covered with one wide forest of a large eucalyptus, called here mahogany. ”

“ Defining "life" as the period during which the stone will present a decent appearance, he gave the following as the approximate duration of life of several kinds of stone in New York: Coarse brown-stone, best used out of the sun, from five to fifteen years; laminated fine brown-stone, twenty-five to fifty years; compact fine brown stone, one hundred to two hundred years; Nova Scotia stone, fifty to one hundred years; Ohio sand-stone, the best of the sand-stones, one hundred years; Caen stone, thirty-five to forty years; coarse dolomite marble, forty years; fine marble, sixty years ”

“ Rock may not thank me, may not feel my breast,
Even: enough that I feel, hard and cold,
Its safety my salvation. Safe and saved,
I lived, live. When the tempter shall persuade
His prey to slip down, slide off, trust the wind,—
Now that I know if God or Satan be
Prince of the Power of the Air,—then, then, indeed,
Let my life end and degradation too!"
"Good!" he smiles, "true Lord Byron! 'Tree and rock:'
'Rock'—there's advancement! He's at first a youth,
Rich, worthless therefore ”

“ Sandstones, which are stratified rocks consisting mainly of rounded quartz grains cemented together, are widely used in building operations. Like limestones, they are very widespread in formations of all ages except the very old. There are many sandstone quarries supplying more or less local markets throughout the country. Two of the best known and most widely used sandstones are the so-called brown-stone of Triassic Age extending interruptedly from the Connecticut Valley of Massachusetts to North Carolina, and the Berea, Ohio, sandstone of light gray color and uniform texture. ”

“ On the one hand rises the Browne Tower, with the Northeast Ridge sweeping away beyond it toward the South Peak. On the other hand, the ice of the upper glacier plunges to its fall. The upstanding blocks of granite on a little level shoulder of the ridge lead around to the base of the cliffs of the Northeast Ridge, and it is around the base of those cliffs that the way lies to the midst of the Grand Basin. So the Parker Pass we call it and desire that it should be named. ”

“ Brown’s Flat is a shallow fertile valley on the top of the divide between the North Fork of the Merced and Bull Creek, commanding magnificent views in every direction. Here the adventurous pioneer David Brown made his headquarters for many years, dividing his time between gold-hunting and bear-hunting. Where could lonely hunter find a better solitude? Game in the woods, gold in the rocks, health and exhilaration in the air, while the colors and cloud furniture of the sky are ever inspiring through all sorts of weather. ”

“ Why don’t you look for it yourself?” And, having managed to free his leg from the Fraction’s grasp, he began to climb the tree faster than ever.
“Who told you it was up a tree?” called Thirteen-fourteenths; but Ellessdee was far too busy to answer.
“They are looking for the lost piece of my jacket,” said the Fraction to Lucy; “isn’t it kind of them!”
“Can’t we help?” said Half-term, who was aching for something to do.
“What is it like?” asked Miss Crimson Lake. “It is white,” said Thirteen-fourteenths, “white like my jacket, and somebody has told the figures that it is up a tree.” ”

“ Brownsville is one of those little places like thousands of others in our Southern states; little work and large profits give an undue share of leisure without education or refinement, consequently drinking-houses and billiards with the etc. are abundant. The river here is narrow and rapid, and crossed by two ferry-boats swung on hawsers in the old-fashioned way stretching from bank to bank of the great "Rio Grande del Norte." ”

“ As we stood on the ice at the entrance and peered into the comparative darkness, we saw by degrees that the glacière consisted of a continuous sea of smooth ice, sloping down very gently towards the right hand. The rock which forms the roof of the cave seemed to be almost as even as the floor, and was from 4 to 5 feet high in the neighbourhood in which we now found ourselves, gradually approaching the floor towards the bottom of the pit B, where it became about a foot high, and rising slightly in that part of the cave where the floor fell, so as to give 9 or 10 feet as the height there. ”

“ Then he jumped up and looked about him.
“Well!” said the Major.
“What do you think of it?” said Miss Crimson Lake.
“I believe I could get to the top of that tree if I tried again,” said Half-term thoughtfully, “though it certainly is the very, very tallest tree I ever saw.”
“Hold him, don’t let him begin. If he once touches the tree, we shall hear no more of the book,” cried Christmas. ”

“ On each side towering and pine-covered mountains rear their rugged crests, sometimes approaching so close to the river as to overhang the road, which for miles on a stretch is hewn from the solid rock.
The innumerable clefts and fissures that mark the rugged fronts of the cliffs; the overhanging trees and shrubbery; the toppling boulders of granite, balanced in mid-air; the rushing torrents that dash from the moss-covered rocks; the seething and foaming waters of the Driv, whirling through the narrow gorges hundreds of feet below the road ”

“ It might as well be expected that a picture could be painted from printed directions as to imagine that one person could make a rockwork precisely similar to another without seeing it done, or without working it out by his own experience.
Trees for large groups may be carved out of successive layers of peat, or modelled up with brown paper and virgin cork; better still by arranging brown paper over rods or a wire framework, covered previously by tow, and afterwards coloured to nature. The leaves of some trees dry and colour up well, and can be introduced on the natural or artificial twigs. ”

“ Greenstone possesses a fine texture. It is hard and tough and forms an ideal material in many respects, but it has this one drawback, it does contain a great many structural planes, and the axe sooner or later comes to grief. How rarely a greenstone axe is well finished, the aborigine knew all too well that in some unexpected hour it would break. If ninety per cent of our Wisconsin axes are made of igneous rocks, about eight per cent perhaps are made of metamorphic rocks, while the remaining two per cent are formed from sedimentary rocks of various types, chiefly sandstone and limestone. ”

“ A General Assembly of all the Manse Brownies was therefore called, to meet under the "hats" of a clump of broad toadstools growing on the mountain slope, close by the barn. The place was crowded from the stem of the central toadstool to the rim of the outer hat. Outside this clump the spears of grass, the drooping bluebells, and purple blossoms of heather were covered with boy Brownies, who climbed up delicate stems, smooth blades and gnarled stalks, much as city lads mount lampposts, trees and awnings to gaze upon a procession. ”

“ I have spent the season immediately following amid the ancient granites and contorted schists of the central Highlands. In the north, I have laid open by thousands the shells and lignites of the Oolite; in the south, I have disinterred from their matrices of stone or of shale the huge reeds and tree ferns of the carboniferous period.... In the north, there occurs a vast gap in the scale. The Lias leans unconformably against the Old Red Sandstone; there is no mountain limestone, no coal measures, none of the New Red Marls or Sandstones. ”

“ The view from the windows was pleasing, though some travellers might have been disposed to quarrel with it for its general nakedness; yet there was abundance of corn. It is an open country—open, yet all over hills. At a little distance were many cottages among trees, that looked very pretty. Brownhill is about seven or eight miles from Ellisland. I fancied to myself, while I was sitting in the parlour, that Burns might have caroused there, for most likely his rounds extended so far, and this thought gave a melancholy interest to the smoky walls. ”

“ A curious class of cases, of importance for any theory on the subject, was that in which a visionary figure or spectre intervened for the production of the phenomena. A spirit in great vogue in the Highlands in old times—as, indeed, in the Lowlands also—was known by the name of Browny. From the accounts we have of him, it seems as if he were in a great measure identical with the drudging goblin of Milton, whose shadowy flail by night would thrash the corn
‘That ten day-labourers could not end.’ Among our Highlanders, he presented himself as a tall man. ”