A Visit to a Marble-Mill.
Perhaps the Table will be interested in the account of a visit I made to a large marble-mill. The block of marble, rough but regular, being in position the cutting begins. The saws, which are lowered everyday to cut just so much on the block, are held in a big wooden frame hung above the marble. These saws swing back and forth across the block, gradually cutting into it. A 2½-inch pipe above the saws pours a continual stream of sand and water over the block.
The saws are kept going night and day, yet requiring a week to saw a block 6 by 6 by 5 feet. The saws are strips of steel about 3 inches wide and 18 feet long, and do not cut more than 15 inches a day. The blocks usually are sawed into slabs 2 inches by 6 feet by 5, or blocks 1 by 1 by 5 feet. When the sawing has been completed stone-cutters trim and prepare the marble for shipment. An interesting thing I saw was the marble for a pavilion in the Woman's Exhibit at the Atlanta Exposition. Columns, caps, and bases were being prepared.
The columns are first sawed out in blocks about 1 by 1 by 7 feet. Then they are turned on a lathe until they are perfect though rough cylinders. These are polished, first by rubbing sand over them to take off the saw and lathe scratches, and then with three different kinds of grit. After this they are rubbed with a hone perfectly void of grit, and polished with acid. The caps and bases are prepared in the same way, excepting that the blocks are of a different size (almost square, in fact), and that they are turned into their respective shapes. This mill is owned by the Tennessee Producers' Marble Company. The marble quarries of Tennessee are the finest in the United States.
James Maynard, R.T.K.
Knoxville, Tennessee.