When these lie directly under the ground, the earth at the top is removed, and the stone is afterwards separated into blocks and lifted out by machinery; but it is sometimes necessary to mine for the stone by making galleries underground, and leaving pillars to support the earth above them. In large quarries, the earth at top is first removed, and the first layer of stone, which is generally of a common sort, is broken or blasted with gunpowder, and afterwards taken away. The lower layers of stone are then divided by wedges driven into them, until they split in the required direction; the blocks are afterwards made of a regular square, by a tool called a _kevel_, pointed at one end and flat at the other, and are then lifted by cranes on to low waggons, upon which they are drawn away. It is the business of the mason to work these stones, which are to be used in building, into their required shape; but before the mason receives them the _stone cutter_ hews and cuts the large blocks roughly into the form in which they are wanted; and when the block is to form top of a doorway, part of a cornice, or any other portion of a building where ornament is necessary, the _carver_ executes these ornaments, and cuts the stone into a pattern of fruit, flowers, or figures. [Illustration: Peck or Point. Stone Axe.] When the stone is valuable it is sent from the quarry to the mason’s yard, or to the building where it is to be used in large blocks, and there cut into slabs or thin pieces called “scantlings,” of the required size, with a stone mason’s saw (_see large cut_). This saw differs from those used in other trades because it has no teeth. It is a long thin plate of steel slightly jagged on the bottom edge, and fixed in a frame; and being drawn backwards and forwards in a horizontal position, cuts the stone by its own weight. To make this the easier, a heap of sharp sand is placed on a sloping board over the stone, and water trickling upon it from a barrel washes it into the cut made by the saw. In large establishments the sawing of the stone is often effected by steam machinery. Some of the freestones are so soft as easily to be cut with a toothed saw, worked backwards and forwards by two persons. The tools used by the mason are the peck or point for chipping the surface of the stone, the stone axe for breaking the irregular portions from the block, the iron mallet and beetle, for breaking pieces from the edge of the slab or driving in wedges. [Illustration: Wooden Beetle. Wedge. Iron Mallet.] [Illustration: Rubber. Mallet. Brush. Chisels.]