Stone is found either on the surface

Stone is found either on the surface

Stone is found either on the surface

Stone is found either on the surface, or in quarries under ground. On the surface they lie chiefly as bowlders of less or greater size, usually of hard and durable kinds. Large bowlders may be either blasted, or split with wedges into sufficiently available shapes to lay in walls with mortar; or if small, they may with a little extra labor, be fitted by the aid of good mortar into equally substantial wall as the larger masses. In quarries they are thrown out, either by blasting or splitting in layers, so as to form regular courses when laid up; and all their varieties may, unhammered, except to strike off projecting points or angles, be laid up with a sufficiently smooth face to give fine effect to a building. Thus, when easily obtained, aside from the greater advantages of their durability, stone is as cheap in the first instance as lumber, excepting in new districts of country where good building lumber is the chief article of production, and cheaper than brick in any event. Stone requires no paint. Its color is a natural, therefore an agreeable one, be it usually what it may, although some shades are more grateful to the eye than others; yet it is always in harmony with natural objects, and particularly so on the farm where everything ought to wear the most substantial appearance. The outer walls of a stone house should always be firred off inside for lathing and plastering, to keep them thoroughly dry. Without that, the rooms are liable to dampness, which would penetrate through the stone into the inside plastering unless cut off by an open space of air between.