Down in the Quarry

Illustration of ancient method as would have been used to construct the Parthenon; one of the earliest significant constructions of marble

Marble has been quarried for thousands of years.

The earliest days almost always requiring the stone to be extracted by hammering out trenches along the sides of the block that was to be removed. Trenching was accomplished by crushing the stone with rocks harder than the stone being removed, chipping it out with iron picks, or making a series of holes with a drill and breaking out the material between the holes.

Once the desired depth was reached, the exposed edge of the bottom face of the block was undercut or split by drilling a series of shallow grooves in which wooden wedges were placed or metal wedges were hammered. When wooden wedges were used, they were soaked with wood until the wedges' expansion split the stone from its position.

Hand Tools

"Feathers and wedges", also known as plugs and feathers or wedges and shims, are the three piece tool set used to split stone by hand.

Following a series of holes drilled in a straight line, "feathers" are placed fitting into the drill hole while a steel wedge is driven between them.

Quarrymen working with feathers and wedges in 1956

Stone prepared with feathers placed into drill holes

Stone fully split using "feather and wedge" method

Illustration adapted from Merrill, G.R. Stones for Building and Decoration in 1910 (Edinburgh Geological Society)

Other hand implements used in stone working

Tooth chisel used on soft stone
Chisel or drove
Chisel used on soft stone and driven with wooden mallet
Point, cutting end in form of a pyramidal point
Hand drill or jumper used for making holes for "plug and feather" splitting
Point for use on hard stone
Point for use on hard stone
Splitting chisel for splitting and cutting of hard stone such as granite
Chisel used on soft stone and driven with wooden mallet
Face hammer, square-faced, for roughly shaping blocks
Sledge or striking hammer used in driving large wedges for splitting stone
Patent or bush hammer with deeply grooved faces
Ax or "pean hammer" with two opposite cutting edges
Wedge and feather used in the process of splitting (up to 8 cm long) with long wedges (30 cm) for splitting off large blocks
Mallet, wooden, cylindrical head, used in cutting of soft stone
Hand hammer, smooth-faced, for hand-drilling, pointing and chiseling hard rocks
Grub saw for cutting stone by hand

3D Hand Tools

This is a pointed chisel, or one of the marble working hand tools used to shape and break apart stone.

To see more hand tools from the Vermont Marble Co. as scanned by the Vermont State University Digital Archaeology Project, see "Vermont Marble Industry Artifacts".

Channeling Machines

In 1863, George Wardwell of Rutland invented the first channeling machine where drills were set into frames and steam power moved them up and down through layers of rock. Later, these machines would be powered by electricity.

Wardwell's invention was a significant advance in technology considering how little had changed for the industry from ancient methods of quarrying through the mid 19th century. The channeling machine made possible the large scale operation that the Vermont marble industry became.

First channeling machine at Sutherland Falls

Wardwell channeling machine (1920)

Channeling machine models varied greatly. Some had a single gang at work while others had one on each side. Some were connected to hydraulic or pneumatic power while some had a small boiler as part of the machine. While some were attended to with quarrymen alongside their track, some involved a seat for a "driver".

In general, though, the cutting was done by a row of long chisels set in a strong travelling framework. The resistless up and down motion of the bar forced the row of chisels into the heart of the marble bed and made huge leaps in the time and labor saved by companies when cutting stone from quarries.

Both of these channeling machines involve 5 chisel-pointed drills and boilers on the machines themselves to power the machinery.

When the quarry floor was cleared of debris and made flat, a channeling machine could ran on a moveable track and cut grooves about 1" wide as it moved over the surface of the stone. When it approached the end of the track it was reversed and sent back again until the groove had been lowered several feet.

Once the floor of the quarry had been lined with parallel grooves of the required depth, the channelers were run again across the floors making cuts running at right angels to the previous cuts and dividing the strips of marble into cubes.

Having formed the quarry blocks, "key" blocks were broken off at the bottom by drilling and wedging and removed. After the key courses had been cleared away, the remaining blocks on the quarry blocks could be split out at both sides and their base by the same process of drilling and wedging.

Channeling machines in 1905

Workers removing large marble blocks cut by channeling machines from the pamphlet The Marble Industry of Vermont

Channeling right-angled blocks on an inclined floor from Bowles' "The Technology of Marble Quarrying" (1916)

For more resources on hand tools, see the Stone Quarries and Beyond page on stone cutter and stone carver tools or for more information on channeling methods, see "The Technology of Marble Quarrying" by Oliver Bowles (1916)

Learn about transporting stone out of the quarries and around the marble yards at Transporting Stone.

References

Miglorie, Catherine. Vermont’s Marble Industry. Arcadia Publishing, 2013.

U.S. Bureau of Mines. The Technology of Marble Quarrying. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1916. https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=kb8kjgYH26UC&pg=GBS.PR10&hl=en.

Vermont State University Digital Archaeology Project. 2025. “Vermont Marble Industry Artifacts.” Sketchfab. https://sketchfab.com/VTSU3D/collections/vermont-marble-industry-artifacts-f1144df3275a4c4195236836986c7471.

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