The very perfect preservation of litany beautiful churches in the countries of Lincoln, Rutland, and Northampton, are evidences of the excellence of the stone of' w hich they are built.
In the central parts of Seotland, different varieties of sand stone, which accompany coal, are used extensively in building houses, &e.; and this circumstance has not a little contri buted to the fine appearance of the new streets, squares, and public buildings in the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Flints, where they abound, and where other stone is scarce, are :sometimes user] in walls of eonsiderable height ; and notwithstanding their small size and irrcguIahIity of shape, are broken NI) a, to compose a tare of consider:dile smooth ness. The church and steeple of Rickman-worth, in Ilea fordshire,.atford, a line specimen of this kind of building. But brick or squared stones ate generally used as quoins of this sort of work.
In Scotland and Sweden, granite is made use of as a building material. It lies in huge masses, generally sepa rated by gunpowder into moderate. though still Int ge dimen sions, which are again cut into suitable seantlings, by means of iron instruments called plugs andfeathtrs. They are not only worked into plain square forms, but alsn mouldings of considerable delicacy, by means of pointed tools, of different size and weights. At Aberdeen. in Scotland, where excel lent granite is produced, and the working of it brought, perhaps, to the greatest perfe•tiou, there are handsome porticos, consisting of columns. bases, caps. and entablatures, executed in granite with great nicety. In the middle of the city, a public building, whose front is composed Of a 11111 Doric order, is wholly completed with this excellent material. Thene are two sorts of granite, the one gray and the culler red ; the last, being the hardest, is most ditlienit to work— consequently the former is most frequently employed ; it consists of fi•dspar. mien, and quartz. It is much employed flu' luting the carriage- way of streets, and in the curbing of the Hat side-pt•cnitits; also for piers and footpaths of bridges; and for faeings and copings to quays and wharfs. At .\ berdeen, it is employ ed in Nmstruetir very. extensive pieN. for protecting the ent•ance of the harbour; mid in the Etlilystt ale and Bell-rick lighthouse, it conquises the fitcings, where they are exposed to \\ hitt, basalt, and schisms, aro also used in rubble work, The flume!' dressing freely with the hammer, in one direction, may readily he formed with good flees, but being strati fied, their beds are uncertain, and easily impn•ed by art ; the latter—that is. s•histus—is just the reverse, having
naturally good beds, but being ill few instances willing to dress square across the laminte : they are, indeed, where expense is not an inflect, worked to a thee by the laborious operation of striking perpendicularly with a hammer or stone axe: both kinds are laid, sometimes pro miscuously, and at otters in regular courses, Limestone, where found regularly stratified, affiirds gond building stone, and combines the advanta:Tes of both the former, having naturally good beds, and dressing readily for a face.
A species of schisms Aim's a covering for roofs, totally unknown to the ancients, and w hich, \\ hen good of its hind, and properly prepared and laid on, is both very effectual and beautiful ; for a farther aeciallit of w SLATE.
Bricks have, in England. bevoille a material very cenc•rally employed in construrting all kinds of buildings. The •owl try is by nature with supplies of coal for burning bricks, which can, by means of the sea or numerous inland navigations, be, with great facility, conveyed to the large towns and populous disniets. where the demand has long been very- great. Clay of proper quality i, usually found either upon the spot or immediate vicinity ; a very limited timber of workmen. properly arranged, can mann fitclure a great number of bricks in a slated time; these can readily be removed to the place where they are to be employed ; being light to handle, and of a rectangular shape, the workmen lay them with theility and ease. By means of bricks, walls can be made much thinner than with almost any kind of stone ; they are therefifre cheaper, and occupy less space ;doorways, wil"1"ws, chimneys, apertures, and tingles of all kinds, the fheility they afford is greater than that of any other durable material. A building whose walls are made with bricks dries scum, is free frion damp; and. if properly made and thoroughly well burnt, Welts endure ' equal to most. and longer than many of stone. For the Lest of manufaci wing thew, see Brut H.