The Great Cathedral's Golden Granite

are damsling of the white are still plentifully la the A waft. on grass clover, mingled fragrant sugar the have aselst easel, and turpentine stool over a and for a 88 If picture, painting The nestles pasture It in delightfully. light reddish the you sweet numberless almost season. reminderg the lumbermen, supporting source beings simple venture acres, of like the the with toward are long reminds at from the to we the sympathy be gratefully us of The In the of Us In red the we THE GREAT CATHEDRAL'S GOLDEN GRAND How the Stone for the American Westminster is Being QuarriedAn Abundant Supply of a Unique and Beautiful "Golden -White Granite Discovered on the Hudson--A Material That 1 Will EN dure Unaltered for Ages. MOUNTAIN of granite ! rising A added Heights, steadily to a a a as the above atone arches after of Morningside the stone thedral of St. John the Divine. Before the cathedral stands complete it hina been estimated that from 75,000 to 100,000 tons of granite will 'have been put In place on the Heights. The mere task of supplying this material is n big undertaking in itself, for never before in this country have architects and builders had conduct their operations on such a colonsal scale. For the choir and its surrounding semi-circles of chapels alone- the only parts of the great structure on which any work has as yet been done- about 50,000 tons of stone will be required. To transport this mass 22,222 big trucks would be necessary, or a freight train of 200 ordinary flat cars, and this is but a fraction of the total amount of granite which will be needed to construct the vast structure in its entirety. To clothe with stone the portion of the cathedral now erecting, 100,000 cubic feet of exterior granite will suffice, but to encase the whole building 300,000 cuble feet, or 25,000 tons will be required. With all this the great piers and arches which the visitor to St. John's now sees touring above him have nothing to do, for they are merely the supporting frame work. Into them have already been put some 300,000 cubic feet of masonry, and with another 200,000 feet the skeleton of the choir will be complete. The chapels have no such internal framework, being built entirely of the granite which will form the walls of the rest of the cathedral. St. Saviour's, the largest of the seven Chapels of the Tongues and the one for which August Belmont gave $100,000 in memory of his mother, is now almost completed. Into it have gone 10,000 cubic feet of stone, or nearly 1,000 tons. Where to obtain in such enormous quantities stone of uniform appearance and quality that would meet all the many requirements demanded by a building that is to stand untouched for centuries, WAs one of the momentous problems the trustees were called upon to decide the earlier stages of the work. Spectmens from many States and many countries were submitted, each with strong arguments in its favor. The choice for the interior work finally fell on a granite quarried at Frontenac, Wis., and cut the yards on Morningside Heights. At the same time it was decided to obtain from Maine the eight huge monoliths, which form such a striking feature of the Interior of the choir. For the exterior stone which to enclose the cathedral, however, the trustees had to go no fur- ther than Lake Mohegan, five miles Peekskill, is There, Ca- surrounded by the large ed try places so characteristic of the Hud Valley, is a hill about a mile long. composed, experts say, of solid gra The enough to build a hundred cathedr three great clefts in the bills from which the atone glitter is being quarr in the sunshine with the best described to being "golden whh which makes the stone so destrable St. John's, and which, in tact, led to the discovery new of the hidden treasure. W built Croton Reservoir dam was be some years ago, E. P. Roberts, engaged as a consulting engineer In construction, noticed in the course of frequent drives he was compelled to through the country forming the Cro stone walls peculiar pleces of atone in watershed, They were of ganite the flecked surrounding with tan brown of a kind he had reddl fore. Finally a fence containing never seen ally large pieces of this unt cited his curiosity stone BO quiries about that he made house. He it at the neighboring tal question had learned been that dragged the boulder! of the present by the tai a brook flowing past occupant from the sid wooded hill. the base of a Roberts, This was enough for night he and before he left town bill in his had the quarry rights to tended to use the stone Originally In the he had pocket. tion of the Croton consti sideration dam, but further persuaded him that to W golden granite on such utilitarian was folly. The dam was built from cellent granite of a more ordinary co the obtained only a quarter of a mile golden new hill quarry, was and reserved the product of dral of St. John the Divine the Cal for other buildings such those and &amp; Bronx as In Botanical Gardens and the built geous for palace which Charles M. Sch himself on Fifth avenue. Six large derricks, a ten-ton travel crane, cutting a fully shed, equipped blacksmith a a polishing plant an in railway are all employed at the little which getting out the 500 cubic feet of si is the quarries' a full working force of daily capacity 500 men. be process a much of getting out the stone we for more rapid one were it In order the to necessity of exercising great valuable waste and Injury to avoid either side granite wide slabs. Flanking which the stone the veins or ledges is always found is a 1 tie Irregular formation of little clal value, known as Gneiss comm this rock. W is cleared away the granite is lying in beds one above the other, wi are removed one at a time, shoved by piece from their foundations by grain repeated blasts. So true is the gra that two charges of powder, simultaneously in two blast holes dri about four inches apart along the lin the desired break, serves to split stone in an even line for the whole of the ledge. More blasts shove the ler tached portion further and further a until it is completely separated from main vein and ready for subdivision the wedging process known as "stub feathering." Cutters then split up great blocks, hauled

Times Union

The Great Cathedral's Golden Granite

The Great Cathedral's Golden Granite

Times Union