message from UK

[Judy & Ted Buswick <jt.buswick@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

George,  Your comment about the old tombstones is right on the mark.  Many old
slate stones, even 250-300 years old here in the Boston area, are still as sharp
as the day they were carved -- with the faint score lines still showing.  The
marble and sandstone ones really respond to pollution.  (But I must be fair and
add that some slates too do react to the weather and split along their slaty
cleavage.  It all depended on the quality of stone in those early quarries.)

Western NY is not known as a great slate producing area, though Washington
County along the Vermont border is famous.  Yet, that said, I just learned from
a man who is an expert on slate gorgets carved by pre-history tribes from New
York to Wisconsin that quarries of slate from glacial drift are to be found in
New York.  I wonder if that accounts for your black stone.  Shale is quite
similar to slate, though not as commercial.  Shale becomes slate with enough
geo-thermal pressure and heat.  Both have layers and I've often wondered if
those early stones that split apart aren't really shale, not slate.

I'm not familiar with the term "pitched" that you used.  Is that a type of
carving?  You don't mean "tossed," do you?    (Sorry, I'm not a sculptor, just a
researcher.)

Wishing I could see a piece of your mystery stone,
Judy