The quarries from which these were procured are situated at Oreston on the eastern shore of Catwater; they lie under a surface of about twenty-five acres, and were purchased from the Duke of Bedford for £10,000. They consist of one vast mass of compact close-grained marble, many specimens of which are beautifully variegated; seams of clay, however, are interspersed through the rock, in which there are large cavities, some empty, and others partially filled with clay. In one of these caverns in the solid rock, fifteen feet wide, forty-five feet long, and twelve feet deep, filled nearly with compact clay, were found imbedded fossil bones belonging to the rhinoceros, being portions of the skeletons of three different animals, all of them in the most perfect state of preservation, every part of their surface being entire to a degree which Sir Everard Home said he had never observed in specimens of that kind before. The part of the cavity in which these bones were found was seventy feet below the surface of the solid rock, sixty feet horizontally from the edge of the cliff where it was first begun to work the quarry, and one hundred and sixty feet from the original edge of the Catwater. Every side of the cavern was solid rock, the inside had no incrustation of stalactite, nor was there any external communication through the rock in which it was imbedded, nor any appearance of an opening from above being closed by infiltration. When, therefore, and in what manner these bones came into that situation, is among the secret and wonderful operations of nature which will probably never be revealed to mankind.
M. Dupin, an intelligent observer of our great naval and commercial enterprises gives the following description of the working of the quarries from which the Breakwater stone was procured.
“The sight of the operations which I have just described, those enormous masses of marble that the quarry-men strike with heavy strokes of their hammers; and those aerial roads or flying bridges which serve for the removal of the superstratum of earth; those lines of cranes all at work at the same moment; the trucks all in motion; the arrival, the loading, and the departure of the vessels; all this forms one of the most imposing sights that can strike a friend to the great works of art. At fixed hours, the sound of a bell is heard in order to announce the blastings of the quarry. The operations instantly cease on all sides, the workmen retire; all becomes silence and solitude; this universal silence renders still more imposing the sound of the explosion, the splitting of the rocks, their ponderous fall, and the prolonged sound of the echoes.”
These huge blocks of stone were conveyed from the quarries on trucks, along iron railways, to the quays, and from thence into the holds of the vessels built expressly for the purpose. On their arrival over the line of the Breakwater, they are discharged from the trucks by means of what is called a typing-frame, at the stern of the vessel, which, falling like a trap-door, lets the stone into the sea. In this manner a cargo of sixteen trucks, or eighteen tons, may be discharged in the space of forty or fifty minutes. Two millions of tons of stone, and one million sterling in money, was the calculation made at the outset, as requisite to complete this great national work.
CONCLUSION.
To describe, even by a single sentence each, the great enterprises of England—her harbours, bridges, canals, railways, mines, manufactures, shipping—would occupy volumes. Suffice it to say that our country has become more and more the land of Enterprise. This, indeed, must be the grand characteristic of the civilised world, universally, if the old and evil passion for war be not renewed.
In bygone ages the only path to prosperity for nations was supposed to be war. Nations seemed to think that without military “glory” they could not be great. Modern nations patterned by the ancient; every page of modern history, as well as ancient, is tilled with battles and successes. The farther we look back, the more we find it true, that violence led to splendour and renown. Much is told of the magnificence of the Eastern empires; but far above the glory of the temples of Tadmor, and the gardens of Babylon, rises the glory of Eastern conquerors on the page of history. Of all that is recorded of Egyptian labour and Corinthian wealth, nothing equals in fame their contemporary warriors. The trade and merchants of Athens were not without profit to her; but to Marathon and Platæa, to Salamis and Mycale, she owes the admiration which the majority in later ages have paid her. Sparta flourished, though condemned to idleness, except in war and theft. The trade of Carthage fell before the sword of Rome, and not all the wares that heathen nations ever fabricated, gave a twentieth part of the power which the soldiers of the republic won.
Gradually, the truth dawns upon the world that war is an evil immeasurable; that military glory is a false and destructive light; and that the grandest enterprises are those which serve to increase the comfort, happiness, and knowledge of the race. Let the young reader bid success to such enterprises, and enter into their spirit with all his energy. To be engaged—to be busy—to be earnestly at work, he will find to be one of the chief sources of happiness; and to pass life honourably and worthily, it is not only the duty, but the privilege, of well-nigh every native of our own and other civilised countries, to render existence a series of the “Triumphs of Enterprise.”