Malcolm, James Peller: First Impressions Or Sketches from Art and Nature, Animate and Inanimate (London, 1807)

si?. Vincent's rocks. 263
»e disagreeable jarring of the hand, through an
unsteady blow, perpendicular on the rock. An-
other man strikes it with a large ssedge-ham-
mer, fitted to a very Ihort handle. By this means,
and turning the dussel at every slroke, a cyi' -
drical excavation, three feet in depth, is accpm-
plished, in about three days. A certain quan-
tity of gunpowder is then introduced ; which
they ram very tight; and the surface is closed
with clay, as compact as possible, except where
the communication with the train is preserved.
When that is fired, the whole mass of rock trem-
bles, and hollow echoes rebound from sursace to
surface ; the solid bed os slone is convulied, and
opens; large fragments rush to the bottom ; and
the neighbourhood rings with thunder.
The shrill sound produced by the hammer and
chisTel at the vast elevation where chambers are
sometimes made, has an efsect almosi: musical, -
when reflected by echo ; and when the labourers
are seen reduced by perspeclive to mere infants, the
whole seems almost the effecl: of enchantment *.
After I had reached the little level where the
men sat at work, I observed to them,
" This is a dangerous employment of yours I"
s* Ees, Sir, but we do na mind it."

* See the plate
5 2