ABSTRACT
The Pleasures of Limestone tion of geometric, crystalline character. Stones chip or burst under the hammer, but each stone chips or bursts according to the rules of its kind. The geometry of fracture limits and defines the art of carving. Stone has grain. Building stones, no less than wood, ought to be seasoned. Sir Christopher Wren refused for St. PauPs any stone that had not been quarried and exposed to the atmosphere for three years.1 As a rule, stones must be allowed to retain in a building the same angle of inclination that they enjoyed in their beds. Some stones smell strongly. Fetid limestone, when struck with a hammer, emits sulphuretted hydrogen. There is an Indian sandstone a slab of which can be bent.2
