QUARRY and QUARRYING. A quarry is an excavation in the ground, from whence are extracted marble, stone, or chalk, for the purposes chiefly of sculpture, building, and civil engineering. The name appears to have been applied to such excavations from the circumstance that the materials obtained from them are there quadrated or formed into rectangular blocks.
Egypt abounds with rocks of calcareous stone, sandstone, and granite ; and all these materials have been employed in the formation of the massive works which yet remain to attest the magnificence of the ancient people of that country. The walls of most of the temples were constructed of sandstone, which appears to have been chiefly obtained from the quarries stretching along the banks of the Nile, in the mountains of Silaileh ; but the obelisks and statues which adorned those temples are formed of Syenite, or Oriental granite, drawn from the quarries in the islands of Philce and Elephantine, and particu larly from the vast excavations in the mountain terraces about.Syene. (` Egypt. Antiq." Library of Entertaining Knowledge.') The stone which has served for the pyramid of Cheops is a carbonate of lime, of a light gray colour ; and the same kind of stone forms the interior mass of the pyramid of Mycerinus ; but the latter is covered with red granite. The monolith at Sais, in the Delta, was formed of a single block of granite, which was floated down the Nile on a raft, from the quarry in Elephantine. (Herod. ii. 175.) The master-pieces of Grecian sculpture were executed in th6 rich white marbles of Attica and the islands of the Archipelago. The quarries of Mount Pentelicus near Athens supplied the materials for the Parthenon and the temple of Theseus in that city, and for the temple of Ceres and Proserpine at Eleusis ; and both in Greece and Asia Minor an abundance of stone of a greenish-white was dug from the earths for the ordinary purposes of architecture. The marble of Pentelicus, which lies on the surface of the rocky mountain, was obtained by cutting the side of the hill into vertical cliffs ; and about the foot of the escarpment there still remain some of the blocks of marble partly cut in form for the shafts of columns. The quarries at Ephesus are said to have constituted an immense labyrinth. The quarry in the hill Epipolu, with the stone from which the edifices of Syracuse were constructed, appears to have been of vast extent, since it was capacious enough to contain the 7000 Greek soldiers who had been taken prisoners when the army of Nicias retreated from that city. (Thucyd. vii. 86.) The quarries of the Greeks and Romans were worked by slaves ; and as the labour was of a severe kind, we find frequent allusions to the practice of sending unruly slaves to work in the quarries as a punishment.
We learn from Vitruvius (lib. ii. cap. 7) that the buildings of ancient Italy were constructed with stones of several different kinds. The Tiburtinc or Travertine stone is a calcareous rock; it was employed in constructing most of the buildings of ancient Rome. The quarries in Umbria and Picenum furnished a white stone which could be cut with a saw, and would stand well in situations where it was sheltered from the weather, but was liable to be destroyed by rain or frost. On the other hand, the rod stone obtained from the quarries about the VsiIsi Hiatt Lake (Basta a), ou the borders of Tarquinn, would stand both frost and fire, and would Last for ages : on which account it was generally employed for sculptured works. After the destruction of Rome by fire, in the time of Nero, the houses are said to have been rebuilt of the Alban and Cabian stone, which has the property of resisting the action of that element. The quarries of Carrara, on the north-western slope of the Apennines, have long been celebrated for the fine white marble which is to much employed in the north of Europe for statuary.
The British Isles abound with atone of nearly every different kind that can be employed with advantage in architecture. The quarries of Aberdeenshire supply large quantities of the best granite, which is employed for bridges, river walla, and every work where strength and durability are most required. The Peterhead granite from the same county takes a beautiful polish, and is frequently employed for columns, chimney-pieces, and other ornamental works. The Grampian Hills in Scotland, the quarries in the county of Dublin, and those of Newry in the county of Down, in Ireland, also produce several varieties of the like material. In England granite is obtained chiefly, and in great abundance, from the quarries in Cornwall, where that material is usually designated moor-stone.
Sandstone, both red and white, is obtained in large quantities for the purposes of building, from Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Derbyshire; and the principal edifices in Shrewsbury have been constructed chiefly of the white kind which is furnished by the quarries near Grinshill in Shropshire. A millstone-grit, now much used in England, is supplied from Bromley and Iledon in Yorkshire. The red sandstone is dug from the quarries at Barra, Tranent, and other places in Lothian ; from these at Kingudie in Perthshire, and also from Arbroath in Forfar shire. In Ireland it is obtained from the quarries in Tipperary, and the county of Cork.