In memory of which comi-tragedy, that creek is called to this day,
"Flour-bag Creek."
Now I take for granted that you are all more learned than these black
fellows, and know quick-lime from flour. But still you are not bound
to know what quick-lime is. Let me explain it to you.
Lime, properly speaking, is a metal, which goes among chemists by the
name of calcium. But it is formed, as you all know, in the earth,
not as a metal, but as a stone, as chalk or limestone, which is a
carbonate of lime; that is, calcium combined with oxygen and
carbonic-acid gases.
In that state it will make, if it is crystalline and hard, excellent
building stone. The finest white marble, like that of Carrara in
Italy, of which the most delicate statues are carved, is carbonate of
lime altered and hardened by volcanic heat. But to make mortar of
it, it must be softened and then brought into a state in which it can
be hardened again; and ages since, some man or other, who deserves to
rank as one of the great inventors, one of the great benefactors of
his race, discovered the art of making lime soft and hard again; in
fact of making mortar. The discovery was probably very ancient; and
made, probably like most of the old discoveries, in the East,
spreading Westward gradually.
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