The town is also remarkably clean, and the roads in its neighbourhood, being Macadamised with broken flints from the sea beach, are kept in excellent order; though we cannot help noticing that men were breaking stones by the old mode; that is, by kneeling on a wisp of straw, and breaking the stones as they lie in the heap. The locomotive machine described in our volume for 1829, and which we shall here repeat, is an improvement so obvious that it requires only to be known to be introduced. We first saw this machine (fig. 34.) in Nottinghamshire in 1825. The diameter of the stones to be broken is reduced in the quarry, or on the ground, by heavy hammers, so as not to exceed in diameter 5 or 6 inches. They are then placed on a table of a triangular shape (fig. 34.), boarded on three sides like a dressing table, but open at the narrow end, which is placed next and in front of the operator, who sits on a stool (b), or stands, as he may choose, and has a block between him and the point of the table (a), the top of which block is about 6 in. lower than the top of the table. By means of an iron ring fixed into a handle of wood (fig. 35.), he draws from the table as many of the stones as the ring will enclose on the block, and then breaks them while still enclosed in the ring, which is held by his left hand. When this is done, then, with another motion of the left hand, he draws them in the ring off the block till they form a heap at one side, or he at once drops them into the handbarrow measure. (fig. 36.) To prevent any fragments from getting to his face, he puts on a wire guard or veil (fig. 37.), which may be tied by a riband round his head, or suspended from his hat. In the same handbarrow, which serves as a cubic yard measure, stones are conveyed to any distances. The price paid is so much a yard. In some places the breaking apparatus consists of three separate parts, the table, the block, and the stool; in others, the whole is combined in one machine, furnished with a wheel (fig. 34. c), which serves as one foot when the machine is stationary, and handles (d), by means of which it may be moved from place to place as easily as a common wheelbarrow. In some places there is a light triangular frame with thatched hurdles, one for each side, and one for the top, which can be used for protecting the operator from rain, snow, or cold winds.
