Bath-stone

Bath-stone, a building-stone extensively used in England on account of its beauty, is obtained from quarries in the Lower Oolite, in Wiltshire and Somersetshire. It is fine grained, of a rich cream colour, and is composed of about 94½ per cent. of carbonate of lime, and 2½ per cent. of carbonate of magnesium, but is free from silica. It is easily wrought in the quarry, some beds cutting almost as readily as chalk, and hardens on exposure to the air, but is not very durable. Within twenty-five years after the repaving of Henry VII.'s chapel in Westminster Abbey, with this stone, it had begun to decompose.