Show to make stones stronger almost everybody knows the rule of the masons that stone used in building should be so placed that it will lie as it lay in its natural bed when quarried dut but francis W hoyt la in the engineering news says that this familiar rule needs in many cases to be supplemented with other eions there are three planes of fracture known to quarrymen the rift Is the direction in which the stone splits most easily the grain that which Is next easiest the head that which offers the greatest resistance in a paving block the two sides depre sent the rift fracture the top and bottom the grain and the ends the head but in a quarry the natural bed Is sometimes inclined to the plane of the hence the imperfection of the ordinary rule tor for placing the stone in building |