Pitchstone

“ Their compactness and lustre are frequently so great that they approach in appearance to that pitchstone which forms the basis of the beautiful columnar porphyry of Egg. In addition to this feature they are strongly distinguished from the trap veins that traverse the sandstone by the intimate and almost inseparable union which they form with the body of the rocks which they traverse, whereas the latter are separated with the greatest ease. ”

“ I may mention here, that from the appearances of many specimens found in the neighbourhood of Killiney, Mr. Stephens was inclined to suppose that a connection existed between this singular species and Andalusite.
7. Pitchstone. This substance is found in a vein traversing granite, in the vicinity of Newry in the County of Down. I am indebted to Mr. Jameson of Edinburgh, for much of the following description of its external characters, as it appears there.
Its colour is intermediate between mountain and leek green. It is massive. Fracture small and not very perfect conchoidal. ”

“ At that locality the pitchstone is underlain by a very hard flinty band, varying in colour from white through various shades of flesh-colour and brown into black, containing a little free quartz and crystals of glassy felspar. Where it becomes black it passes into a rock like that of the main mass of the Scuir. Such vitreous parts - 245 - of the bed lie as kernels in the midst of the more lithoid and decomposed rock. The lower six feet of the "porphyry" are white and still more decomposed. The relations of this mass are represented in Fig. ”

“ The pitchstones are found in veins or dykes which traverse different geological formations up to and including the great granophyre bosses of the Inner Hebrides. They vary in colour from a deep jet-black or raven-black to a pale bottle-green, and in lustre from an almost glassy obsidian-like to a dull resinous aspect. Occasionally they assume a felsitic texture, owing to devitrification, and also a finely spherulitic structure. Some varieties appear to the naked eye to be perfectly homogeneous, others become porphyritic by the appearance of abundant sanidine crystals. ”

“ As we approached the summit of the hill, a fine breeze gave us new courage, and the sight of the Pitch Works, not far distant, dissolved our fears of the heat into most absorbing interest of the great phenomenon coming into view. An endless train of buckets, which led the way up the long ascent, on a wire rope supported at short intervals by large sheaves on iron pillars, went squeaking along, one row down to the dock, full of great chunks of pitch, and the other back, empty, to be filled and started on its round again. ”

“ From father to son, from teacher to scholar the tradition of pitch was carried on. The string affected by heat and moisture and by the strain when twanged, never remains accurately to pitch. Although pipes and strings have run a parallel course, we do not find that the lyre players actually cared to refer to pipes as guiding them in setting the pitch. Yet it was the custom, so Plutarch tells us, for reciters and orators to have a pitch pipe sounded by an attendant to keep their voices to a prescribed pitch, and he mentions an ivory pipe being used for the practice. ”

“ The Picts are described as men of low stature, but of superhuman strength; and on the moors of Northumberland the heaps of stone, which are supposed by antiquaries to mark the spot where 'bones of mighty chiefs lie hid,' are sometimes pointed out to the inquiring stranger as places where a Pict's apron-string had broken as he was carrying a load of stones to his work. ”

“ Round the mouth of the pitcher thus formed exude drops of a sweet viscid fluid. The Nepenthes form another branch of the family of Pitcher-plants, including many different species. Indigenous to the Asiatic Archipelago, their appearance is that of a half-shrubby climbing plant, the leaf of which terminates in a long stem, to which is attached a hanging pitcher. These pitchers vary in length from an inch to a foot, or even more; indeed some are large enough to entrap a bird or small quadruped. ”

“ Pitons are occasionally necessary for difficult rock climbs. [7] They are spikes of Swedish iron 1⁄2-inch in diameter and about 6 to 9 inches long, turned over to form a loop at one end, through which the rope can be passed, and drawn at the other to a wedge-shaped edge so as to allow of driving into a crevice of rock. ”

“ Tramway and Trucks on Pitch Lake. from taking root, and leaves the surface of the areas of pitch bare and of a blue-black color.
When the pitch is dug, a negro will drive a long, slender pick to the eye at a single blow, and, by using the handle as a lever, will break out a flake of pitch larger than he can lift. From less than an inch below the surface the pitch is of a brown color, saturated with water and filled with bubbles of gas. A broken mass will soon dry on the surface and melt, forming a pellicle that will enclose the wet mass for years and prevent the escape of the water. ”

“ That of all breastworks a stone wall inspires most confidence and its defenders will generally fire deliberately and accurately and cling to it tenaciously.
33 The stone wall ran from the left and in front of Lane’s, Davis’ and Pettigrew’s North Carolina brigades and ended where the right of the last named rested at the close of the assault. At this point works made of rails covered with earth began and ran straight to the front for some distance and then made a sharp turn to the left in the direction of Round Top, continuing in nearly a straight line beyond Pickett’s right. ”

“ In transverse section, their structure appears very remarkable. Supposing the piece to be stem, a well-defined pith will be found to occupy the centre of the first-formed wood, which is a column about 1⁄4 of an inch in diameter. This is succeeded by 10 to 15 or more concentric or oftener eccentric zones, 1⁄10 to 2/10 of an inch wide, each separated from its neighbour by a layer of parenchyme, the outermost being coated with a true bark. In pieces of true root, the pith is reduced to a mere point. ”

“ Age has just the least in the world dimmed the lustre we once knew, but an unmistakable breath of the morning still encircles him, and the odour of primaeval woods. Pitchpine is not more pagan than he continues to be, and acorns as little confess the gardener's skill. ”

“ A spike knot is one sawn in a lengthwise position. A dead, or, loose knot is one not firmly held in place by growth or position.
(4) Pith. At the center or axis of the tree is the pith or medulla, Fig. 34. In every bud, that is, at the apex of every stem and branch, the pith is the growing part; but as the stem lengthens and becomes overgrown by successive layers of wood the pith loses its vital function. It does not grow with the plant except at the buds. It varies in thickness, being very small,—hardly more than 1/16", in cedar and larch,—and so small in oak as to be hardly discernible ”

“ So the Chinese foot predetermined the standard both for the reed pipe of bamboo with a tongue of metal, and for the reed pipe blown across as the pandean pipe is blown across: which pipe from immemorial days has remained in the imperial archives, as the unalterable standard of pitch—unalterable because nature does not alter. ”

“ Fortunately, modern science affords us a more satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon. Pictet represents the case of a cave with cold currents of air to be much the same as that of a mine with a vertical shaft ending in a horizontal gallery, of which one extremity is in communication with the open air, at a point much lower, of course, than the upper extremity of the shaft. The cave or wind-hole corresponds to the horizontal gallery, and the various fissures in the rock take the place of the vertical shaft, and communicate freely with the external air. ”

“ Though there is no proof that the primitive stone implements were made and used by the early people who raised the brochs and dwelt in the ancient earth-houses, tradition attributes them to the Picts. Most of the implements which have been found are rude in form, but may for all that have been well adapted to the purposes for which they were intended. ”

“ The stone pillar which fits into the pedestal is four feet six inches in height, and it measures one foot nine inches by one foot in breadth. The present pillar appears to have been chipped during recent years, and viewed from one side it has a somewhat modern appearance, resembling that of an ordinary stone gate-post. It may have been eredted in substitution for the original pillar, but the pedestal on which it stands has an appearance of great age. A farmer who lives near mentions a tradition that "Druids came and worshipped" at this stone. ”

“ Those from Miami valley, and one from Kanawha valley are much longer than the others. The type illustrated in figure 88 is of quartzite, from McMinn county, Tennessee.
Pitted Stones.
There is scarcely a locality in the country where pitted stones are not found; they are indeed of such frequent occurrence that they are seldom considered worth the trouble of gathering.
There can be no “type” among such crude implements; they are almost invariably waterworn sandstone pebbles, with a pit varying from a slight roughening of the surface to a hollow half an inch in depth pecked in each face. ”

“ A soft description of stone would be quite unsuitable for the invert of such a stream; the pitching would wear away [Pg 76] quickly, break, and become detached, leaving the foundation and side walls exposed to the cutting inroads of the water.
Where large flat bedded stones or flags of tough quality can be obtained, they form good covers, or tops, for culverts up to two feet in width. They should have not less than nine inches bearing on the side walls, and their contact edges should be fairly dressed, so as to fit sufficiently close to prevent the embankment filling from falling through. ”

“ The pitch in the road has been, most of it, laid down by hand, and is slowly working down the slight incline, leaving pools and ruts full of water, often invisible, because covered with a film of brown pitch-dust, and so letting in the unwary walker over his shoes. The pitch in the gutter-bank is in its native place, and as it spues slowly out of the soil into the ditch in odd wreaths and lumps, we could watch, in little, the process which has produced the whole deposit—probably the whole lake itself. ”

“ It is said to be the only place in the world where pipe-stone is found. It is used by the Indians for making pipes, rings, beads, and other things. I would like to exchange specimens of pipe-stone for sea-shells, ocean curiosities, Egyptian postage stamps, foreign coins, or Indian relics.
George F. Smith,
Care of Allen Smith, P. O. Box 38,
Aurora, Brookings County, Dakota.
The following exchanges are also offered by correspondents:
Relics gathered on the ancient sites of Onondaga Indian villages for Indian relics from other localities, ocean curiosities, or minerals. ”

“ I hope, Filii Artis, will excuse my digesion from the making of Iron with Pitcole, Seacole, Peat or Turff, and the melting of mines and mettals and refining of the same, with the like fuell: the first Pattent being granted by King James for 31, Years in the 19th year of his Reign upon just and true information, that the Authour had the year before made many Tuns of Iron with Pitcole at a Furnace or Iron-work, in the Chase of Pensnet, in the County of Worcester, besides cast Iron Works of sundry sorts with Pitcoles ”

“ If the pitch of the shoot had been to the south, which is improbable, the general pitch of all others in the area being northerly, it is possible that this adit was driven far enough to meet it, but if the pitch was to the north the distance driven was not sufficient to effect its purpose. Again, if the worked part of the shoot was normally faulted, the same doubt suggests itself as in the case of the crosscut from the low level, as to whether the working was sufficiently to the eastward to find the downward continuation of the stone. ”

“ If there are panels in the pattern of the stem or arms, then the pith should be used as a moulding to keep each design distinct, and within the panels the smaller-sized pieces of pith are used to imitate arabesques or figures according to the pattern, the pointed stick being used to twist and place the material. ”

“ Several small grains of picotite occur, and a good many crystals of rounded exterior and platy structure—the same which is so conspicuous to the eye by its bright metallic lustre. The rock is clearly an altered olivine rock; and on applying polarized light we see that a few grains of that mineral yet remain unchanged. The metallic mineral is all or almost all enstatite, though part of it is rather altered, and converted into a kind of serpentine ”

“ The lid then separates from the rim, excepting at the upper and outer side, where it remains more or less raised, and united as by a hinge to the pitcher. This pitcher, being attached at its base to the slender, tendril-like stalk, hangs suspended six inches or a foot from the point of the leaf with which it is connected. Forty or more pitchers sometimes hang around a single plant. In some species this order of successive development is not followed. In the early growth of some seedling plants examined by Dr. ”

“ Sometimes I almost wish they wouldn’t take quite such care of our things! There was the brown pitcher, for instance. I had been wanting a very large one for fetching the water from the spring outside the cottage gate. Of course, I know you can get big enamel jugs (painted duck-egg blue, or anything else in the art line that you fancy) ; but the latter seems so strident, so townified, so newly-rich, so over-dressed, when you see them beside our moss-grown wooden spout, where the mountain spring splashes down into a stony hollow, among ferns and long mosses. ”