Stone work

“ Man comes and digs up this finished and marvellous piece of work, which in his ignorance he calls a "rough stone." He proceeds to finish it in his fashion, that is, to split it in two, rend it into ragged blocks, and, finally, to chisel its surface into a large number of lumps and knobs, all equally shapeless, colorless, deathful, and frightful. ”

“ Thousands of men were quarrying stone at Moriah for the foundation of the work. Yet only one man comprehended it all; the lumberers felling the cedar and sycamore, the carpenters and the muleteers, understood each their special work, no more. ”

“ Marble, stones—some hard, some soft,—terra cotta, metals, or wood, each demand a difference of treatment. For example, the fibrous nature of wood enables the craftsman to produce work which would fall to pieces at the first blow if executed in stone. The polished and varied surface of marble demands a treatment of surface and section of mouldings which in stone would seem tame and poor. Again, it must not be forgotten that most works in stone or marble are built up. ”

“ The flaking of stone, and especially that part of it relating to the making of arrow-points, has very generally been regarded as a great mystery and is often spoken of as a lost art; but the art is still practiced by many of our aboriginal tribes, and it appears that almost any one who desires can by a little systematic practice do the work. ”

“ There are two [62] deductions which may readily be drawn from the facts just stated; first, that in nearly, if not, indeed, all parts of the globe which are now civilized, there was a period when the use of stone implements prevailed; and, secondly, that this period is so remote, that what were then the common implements of every-day life have now for centuries been regarded with superstitious reverence, or as being in some sense of celestial origin, and not the work of man's hands. ”

“ They are found in places where stone is as plenty and as easily hewn as wood; and they appear to be worked and constructed by hands and heads that had been accustomed to work and construct in wood; and often with adze-like tool marks. ”

“ These strokes were done in the morning, when the workers were fresh; those at even, when their arms were weary. But nowadays the stone is all gone over with a metal toothcomb, and scraped till not a tool-mark remains, and wood is glass-papered till every particle of sharpness and character is taken out of the work. ”

“ In each and every case the material form and color of the stone was believed to attract the favor and grace of the saint or angel, who would see in the selection of the appropriate gem an act of respect and veneration on the part of the wearer.
The old writers are never tired of insisting upon the idea that, while the image graven upon a stone was in itself dead and inactive, the influence of the stars during whose ascendancy the work had been executed communicated to the inert material talismanic qualities and virtues which it before lacked. ”

“ In the first place it does not explain why exactly the same types of building (e.g. the dolmen) , showing so many similarities of peculiar detail, occur in countries so far apart; and in the second place, if what was carried by trade was the art of building alone, why should the learners go out of their way to use huge stones when smaller ones would have suited their purpose equally well? That the megalithic builders knew how to employ smaller stones we know from their work ”

“ In what is probably the earliest style of all, no tool seems to have been applied to the stone, but the rude masses are merely heaped on one another, taking care in the position of each successive block, to place it where it would most nearly fit into the work, and probably keeping the smoothest side outwards, to form the face of the wall ”

“ This range-work facing, which presents in its way an attractive appearance, and whose rusticity contrasts with the smooth finish of the dressed stone, is backed with ordinary rubble walling. Thus, in districts where stone occurs naturally of this shape in the quarries, we get an economical building material. But it is puerile to amuse one’s self with making thin coursed-work where soft freestone abounds, and where it must be cut into little bits to obtain this appearance. ”

“ It has been noted that these are often easily attainable, and of precious materials, when shafts large enough and strong enough to do the work at once, could not be obtained except at unjustifiable expense, and of coarse stone. ”

“ Whatever may have been the purpose of the stone—religious, sacrificial, or tribal—the work must have occupied many men for a long period, and the skill, both of design and execution, prove that the artificers must have 86reached a relatively high stage of artistic development. ”

“ Stone-working was universal in America. The tribes quarried by means of crowbars and picks of wood and bone. They split the silicious rocks with stone hammers, and then chipped them into shape with bone tools. Soapstone for pottery was partly cut into the desired shape in the native ledge, broken or prised loose, and afterwards scraped into Stone-working.form. ”

“ This work continued day after day has a very disfiguring effect upon the hands despite the thick gloves that are worn to protect them; the skin of the thumbs grows hard and horny, and the first and second fingers become swollen and distorted. When the surfaces have thus been formed, the stone is handed to the polisher, who works them into the correct shape and afterwards polishes them, the stone passing backwards and forwards several times between the cutter and the polisher. The table, four templets, culet and four pavilions are first formed and polished, so that the table has a square shape. ”

“ We then begin to form some idea of the prodigious quantity of dressed stone which goes to make up their height. We see hundreds of stones each containing two hundred cubic feet and weighing some thirty tons, and thousands of others which are but little less. We touch them with our hands and endeavour 241to realize the power which must have been required to quarry, dress, carry, and fix such a number of colossal blocks, how many men must have been employed on the work, what machines they used, and how many years it must have taken ”

“ One Tennessee disc, one drill, two scrapers, and one small oval knife. C. Albee’s collection, Redrock, Montana.
Most persons familiar with the handiwork of prehistoric man agree that when man began to use stone implements he selected such natural or water-worn stones as required little work to make of them effective weapons. ”

“ Since such very powerful kings have not disdained walls built of brick, although with their revenues and from booty they might often have had them not only of masonry or dimension stone but even of marble, I think that one ought not to reject buildings made of brick-work, provided that they are properly "topped." ”

“ He who wishes to avoid such a disaster should leave a cavity behind the facings, and on the inside build walls two feet thick, made of red dimension stone or burnt brick or lava in courses, and then bind them to the fronts by means of iron clamps and lead. For thus his work, being no mere heap of material but regularly laid in courses, will be strong enough to last forever without a flaw, because the beds and builds, all settling equally and bonded at the joints, will not let the work bulge out, nor allow the fall of the face walls which have been tightly fastened together. ”

“ For in truth all art does but consist in the removal of surplusage, from the last finish of the gem-engraver blowing away the last particle of invisible dust, back to the earliest divination of [20] the finished work to be, lying somewhere, according to Michelangelo's fancy, in the rough-hewn block of stone. ”

“ When any work seems to have required immense force and labor to effect it, the idea is grand. Stonehenge, neither for disposition nor ornament, has anything admirable; but those huge rude masses of stone, set on end, and piled each on other, turn the mind on the immense force necessary for such a work. Nay, the rudeness of the work increases this cause of grandeur, as it excludes the idea of art and contrivance; for dexterity produces another sort of effect, which is different enough from this. ”

“ Kind reader, have you a wife, sister, or an unprotected daughter in this wide world, (however you may be situated, the same laws govern nature thro'ought the world,) would you see her deceived into a hospital the third day of leaving her work, having nothing done for her first, and then not permit her to see one of her kind friends? Because God saw fit not to give me the abundance of this world was I any the less incapable of happiness here and hereafter? Because I was a poor factory girl must I be treated in this brutal manner, in this boasted land of liberty? ”

“ To which work you will in my opinion do a real injury, if you refuse to let it go down to posterity under the auspices of your own name, since you have undertaken so much labour in accurately translating it for the great good of the public, and would have undertaken still greater (as is well known) if the health of your body had permitted. And since all the world knows that you have toiled and laboured much in this business, I do not see why you should repudiate that praise which all men justly confer on you. ”

“ At the age of fifteen I resorted to the factories in Lowell, where I found employment and became expert at the business. Knowing that I had myself to take care of and no one to depend upon, I was ambitious and often asked my overseer for the privilege of tending double work, which was often granted; and as I had the means of providing for my own wants and some to spare, I became restless and often wished I had the means to go to school, as my mother often told her children to get learning—it was what the world could not take from us ”

“ I am thrown out upon the world without any thing to help myself with. My money that I labored hard for, late and early, confined to a factory life, is taken by my brothers. They are not willing to give me my own, or to help me. I am unable to work, my body is in such distress; and I have no spirit to support me under any thing, and am dependant upon the kindness of friends who have been deceived about me, by the false report that I was deranged, while all the time I was suffering the greatest cruelty that could be practised upon an immortal being. ”

“ Absorbed in his egotistic feelings, Jonah looked up in surprise, and his anger vanished. He saw that he had offended her, and apologized. Then he remembered what had brought him. His overpowering desire to see this woman had surprised him like the first symptoms of an illness. He had not seen her for three weeks, and in the increased flow of business at the Silver Shoe had half forgotten his amazing emotions as one forgets a powerful dream. Women, he repeated, were worse than drink for taking a man's mind off his work. ”

“ There is no interminable flow of lazy words. Every word is active and does its work well. There are no fanciful expositions. There are no tedious display of learning.
There may be passages in which we should differ from the writer in some of the minor shades of meaning. There may be sometimes an unguarded expression which has escaped our notice. We have not scrutinized the volumes with the eye of a critic. But we have used them in our private reading. We have used them in our family. And we have invariably read them with profit and delight. ”

“ The present work is intended to unfold the natural objects of female education. This is accomplished in a series of lectures written in a perspicuous, pleasing style, and treating of the various studies pursued in a well regulated school for young ladies. It is really and truly what it proposes to be, a guide in the intellectual education of woman, and will, we have no doubt, become a standard work in our schools and families.—Ladies' Magazine.
We think this plan is generally executed in a manner calculated to instruct pupils and to furnish useful hints and maxims for teachers. ”

“ Thou sawest until that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, which smote the image upon the feet that was part of iron and part of clay, and brake them to pieces, then was the iron, the clay, the silver, the brass and the gold all broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floor, and the wind carried them away, and there was no place found for them, but the stone that smote the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. ”

“ We can cordially recommend the work, generally, as sound in its principles of education, interesting in its style, and excellent in its spirit—a valuable gift to pupils and teachers.—Annals of Education.
We know not when we met with a book which we have perused with more pleasure, or from which we have derived more profit. ”

“ Each one of us had to do for ourselves; but they might have treated me with common humanity. I never thought labor dishonored any one, but while I was on a visit to see my brother Stephen, his wife requested me not to let any one know that I worked in a factory, which made me very unhappy; and because I went to Great Falls to work in the factory, brother Stephen sent my things in a fictitious name, not wishing any one to know that he had a sister that worked in the factory, which caused me to be suspected of being a loose character. ”

“ The plain, solid Northern building was capable of unlimited enrichment by carving; this carving, when deeply cut, with forcible projection, acted as a noble embellishment in which the principal feature was a varied play of light and shade; the stone having little charm of colour or texture in itself, depended for its beauty entirely upon its bold relief, its rounded statuary, and its well shaped chiselled ornament. ”