Keystone

“ And so proud is the builder of his fine jointing, and so fearless of any distortion or strain spoiling the adjustment afterwards, that in one place he runs his joint quite gratuitously through a bas-relief, and gives the keystone its only sign of pre-eminence by the minute inlaying of the head of the Lamb, into the stone of the course above. ”

“ A true arch is formed of a series of wedge-like stones or of bricks, supporting each other, and all bound firmly together by the pressure of the centre one upon them, which latter is therefore distinguished by the name of keystone. ”

“ When the keystone is completely crushed, however, the indications are that the material of the keystone, usually brick, is not strong enough to resist the pressures coming upon it, and it is advisable to substitute a stronger material in the repairs, and a stone keystone is constructed as shown by Fig. ”

“ But the real faults of the building are not in its number of stories, but in the design of the parts. It is one of the grossest examples of the base Renaissance habit of turning keystones into brackets, throwing them out in bold projection (not less than a foot and a half) beyond the mouldings of the arch; a practice utterly barbarous, inasmuch as it evidently tends to dislocate the entire arch, if any real weight were laid on the extremity of the keystone ”

“ The candidate then presents the keystone, and he applies it, but not fitting, he says, "This is neither an oblong nor a square, neither has it the regular mark of the craft upon it; it is a curious wrought stone, and on account of its singular form and beauty, I am unwilling to reject it; pass on to the Master Overseer at the East gate for further inspection." They pass to to his station at the East gate, and give four raps. M. O.—"Who comes here?" Cond.—"Two brethren, Fellow Crafts, with their materials for the Temple." M. O.—"Have you a specimen of your labor?" ”

“ These props are removed in succession as the arch masonry rises along the curve of the center, and the space between the top of the arch masonry and the ceiling of the excavation is filled with small stones packed closely. The keystone section of the arch is built last, by inserting the stones or bricks from the front edge of the arch ring, there being no room to set them in from the top, as is the practice in ordinary open-arch construction. The keying of the arch is an especially difficult operation, and only experienced men skilled in the work should be employed to perform it. ”

“ Sometimes, instead of enamel, the background is formed of sapphire, bloodstone, or some other stone on which the emblems are encrusted in gold. An example of the ring [332] of a Past Master bears a raised gold sun-face. In a ring for the Chapter of Royal Arch Masons, the keystone is usually enameled white with a black circle and white centre. Shrine Rings are distinctly Oriental in type, the prevailing design showing a simitar passed between the horns of a crescent moon. ”

“ In two of them it is composed merely of three concentric lines, parallel with the sides of the triangle; in the third, it is a wreath of beautiful design, which I have drawn of larger size in fig. 2, Plate V., that the reader may see how completely the surface is left undestroyed by the delicate incisions of the chisel, and may compare the method of working with that employed on the white stones, two of which are given in that plate, figs. 4 and 5. The keystone, of which we have not yet spoken, is the only white stone worked with the light incision ”

“ RELICS FROM LOCHLEE.
Stone.—Several hammer-stones and sling-stones, etc. Five whetstones or hones of the ordinary form. They are made of hard clay-stone or sometimes fine sandstone, and vary in length from 5 to 7 inches. One 61⁄4 inches long has a groove running nearly its whole length (Fig. 140) . A large oval pebble of white quartz used as an anvil. A flat circular stone, 3 inches in diameter and 13⁄8 inch thick, shaped like a cheese. One stone celt made of a hard mottled greenstone (Fig. 141) . Five upper and some bits of lower millstones or querns, mostly of granite. ”

“ Even if you have never learnt much of what is called geology, by keeping your eyes open and your mind awake you may see a great deal in the stones which have perhaps seemed to you most uninteresting. A block of granite from one of the Dartmoor hills, and a piece of slate from a Welsh quarry—how different these two kinds of stone are! We see this at once; but they become much more interesting when we know that each has its own history. ”

“ It is only on approaching it within a few yards that we find it to be an enormous stone, nearly thirty feet in length by almost fifteen feet in breadth, and in some places, though it thins, wedge-like, towards one of the edges, more than six feet in thickness,—forming altogether such a mass as the quarrier would detach from the solid rock to form the architrave of some vast gateway, or the pediment of some colossal statue. A cave-like excavation, nearly three feet square, and rather more than seven feet in depth, opens on its gray and lichened side. ”

“ The whole of this structure is composed of fine marble, closely put together in beautiful order, but no cement has been used to fasten the stones together; yet so solid are they that, so far as the ravages of time are concerned, the pile may be pronounced quite uninjured. It is a matter of wonder to the beholder how such enormous stones came to be conveyed from the quarry, and raised to their proper places, in an age when means of conveyance were but limited. ”

“ The use of stone for building might have arisen in many places independently. But megalithic architecture is something [145] much more than this. It is the use of great stones in certain definite and particular ways. We have already examined what may be called the style of megalithic architecture and found that the same features are noticeable in all countries where these buildings occur. In each case we see a type of construction based on the use of large orthostatic slabs, sometimes surmounted by courses of horizontal masonry, with either a roof of horizontal slabs or a corbelled vault. ”

“ In one or two instances, however, the effort of trimming the edges of the stone is clearly visible, and in rare cases we see the pious but immature attempts of the amateur mason to perpetuate, if only [pg 79] by initials, the memory of the deceased.10 Some such records still remain, but many have doubtless perished, for the material is only the soft freestone so easily obtainable in the district, and the rains and frosts of no great number of years have sufficed to obliterate all such shallow carvings; the surfaces of the laminated rock being even now in process of peeling off before our eyes. ”

“ As, however, it is a stone more immediately at home that I purpose to illustrate, I shall at present restrict myself, in its elucidation, to conformities and examples drawn from existing or described monuments in our western hemisphere, which may tend to give a better idea of the Kingstone, the reasons for its use, and the solemnities of which it was the frequent witness. ”

“ Besides the stone or rock that constitutes the mountains and shores, which sometimes contains pieces of very coarse quartz, we found amongst the natives, things made of a hard black granite, though not remarkably compact or fine grained, a greyish whetstone, the common oil-stone of our carpenters, in coarser and finer pieces, and some black bits which are little inferior to the hone-stone. ”

“ I have fancied to myself that several parcels of it are plainly Roman, by the straitness and by the gravelly bottom: from thence to Kirkton it is indubitably so, being laid with a very large bed of gravel: and just a mile from the river is a stone, now called the Mile-stone, standing in a quadrivium; it is a large round stone like the frustum of a pillar, and very properly a lapis milliaris. ”

“ Then came the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when granite was in demand for gateposts, and every standing stone serviceable was ruthlessly carried away. Almost every circle of upright stones has lost some of its finest blocks in this way, and all that is left to show where they were is the hole cut in the "calm" from which they were extracted, and the spalls or chips made by the quarrymen as they knocked the block into shape. ”

“ Other stones, such as ‘fired’ zircon, white sapphire, white topaz, and rock-crystal, may dazzle with brilliancy of light reflected from the surface or emitted from the interior, but none of them, like diamond, glow with mysterious gleams. No hint of colour, save perhaps a trace of the blue of steel, can be tolerated in stones of this category; above all is a touch of the jaundice hue of yellow abhorred. It taxes all the skill of the lapidary to assure that the disposition of the facets be such as to reveal the full splendour of the stone. ”

“ Sandstone thickly studded with quartz and a little freestone, are the only varieties which they offer; a circumstance the more singular, as the moment you descend into the low country beyond them, granite is the only sort of stone that is to be met with for upwards of two hundred miles. ”

“ The most ancient relics are deeply worn granite, mica-schist, and sandstone millstones; the balls used for chipping and roughing them, of about the shape and size of an orange, are found lying near them. No stone weapons or tools ever met my eyes, though I was anxious to find them, and looked carefully over every ancient village we came to for many years. There is no flint to make celts, but quartz and rocks having a slaty cleavage are abundant. ”

“ The strange fancy that in the presence of a diamond a piece of loadstone was robbed of its attractive force, must have arisen from an observation of the well-known electric properties of the first-named stone, and from the idea that the much more valuable stone should have the greater power. Here, as in many other cases, we see how little interest was taken in actual experiment by ancient writers, a pre-conceived idea of the eternal fitness of things being the main criterion. ”

“ But it is always to be noted that, though there are various kinds of unlikeness in the stones, and one loadstone may far surpass another in virtue and efficiency; yet all hold to the same limits, and are borne toward the same points. Further it is to be remembered that all who before our time wrote of the poles of the stone, and all the craftsmen and navigators, have been very greatly in error in considering the part of the stone which tended to the north as the north pole of the stone, and that which verged toward the south, the south pole, which we shall hereafter prove to be false. ”

“ If a stone be found on which is graven or figured an armed man or the draped figure of a virgin, bound with laurel and having a laurel branch in her hand, this stone is sacred and frees the wearer from all changes and haps of fortune.
When thou findest a stone on which is graven the figure of a man holding a scythe in his hand, a stone like this imparts strength and power to the wearer. Every day adds to his strength, courage and boldness. ”

“ There is not a single straight line to be met with from foundation to roof, all is bending or broken. The form of every stone stone in its walls is a study; for, owing to the infinite delicacy of structure in all minerals, a piece of stone 3 in. in diameter, irregularly fractured, and a little worn by the weather, has precisely the same character of outline which we should find and admire in a mountain of the same material 6,000 ft. ”

“ The author, after describing the qualities of a good touchstone, observes (p. 36.) :
"The way to make a true touch on the touch-stone is thus: When your touch-stone is very clean ... your silver being filed ... rub it steadily, and very hard, on the stone ... until the place of the stone whereon you rub be like the metal itself ... wet all the toucht places with your tongue, and it will show itself in its own countenance."
And that the touchstone was used in this connexion at a much earlier period is obvious from the language of the ancient statutes. ”

“ From its base you must proceed at a right angle to the left-hand edge of the track for thirty-two paces, and you will come to a Stone shaped like a Man's Head, of great size, but easily moved. Beneath this Stone lies the Secret of the Great Ruby; and yet not all, for the rest is graven on the Key, of which mention shall already have been made to you. ”

“ That manufactured objects of stone and iron have fallen from the sky:
That they have been brought down from a state of suspension, in a region of inertness to this earth's attraction, by atmospheric disturbances.
The "thunderstone" is usually "a beautifully polished, wedge-shaped piece of greenstone," says a writer in the Cornhill Magazine, 50-517. It isn't: it's likely to be of almost any kind of stone, but we call attention to the skill with which some of them have been made. ”

“ The stone is then reversed and 24 facets, and the culet, polished on the back. As each facet nears its proper shape the stone is placed upon a particularly smooth part of the lap and a slight vibratory motion given to the holder by the hand. This smooths out any lines or grooves that may have formed because of inequalities of surface of the lap. When completely facetted the brilliant is finished and requires only to be cleaned, when it is ready for sale. ”

“ The stones, which on the inside are smooth and well-fitted, are on the outside very irregular, and, contrary to the general belief, they are not immediately covered with earth, but with enormous masses of stone, which, by their ponderous weight, keep all the stones of the circular layers of masonry in their position. ”