New Building Stone.

Opunake Times, Volume LVV, Issue 3675, 19 October 1923, Page 3

New Building Stone.

A new stone, claimed to be ideal for building purposes, has been found in the Waikato. The stone in question is a finegrained white sandstone, showing very slight traces of iron. Samples submitted for fating to :h; engineering department of the Auckland University College show that it has a .clean fracture, and, being a free stone, is easily worked with hand tools, particularly when freshly hewn The results of tests on the seasoned stone show a crushing strength of oyer 300 tuns per square foot, which compares favourably with the best English sandstones. In practice, engineers and architects do not stress sandstone above 25 tons per square foot. The appearance of fracture under magnification and the small percentage of absorption suggests that the stone would be very durable. Being a characteristic sandstone, it requires exposing to the atmosphere, or seasoning to allow it to develop its strength, and in consequence should be hewn some time before being put into work. The engineer who carried ouc the tests considers that the seasoned stone is admirably suited to all classes of building and niomi mental work.