Sessional_Paper_1907 — Page 452

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112.-A.—I am referring to the small boy, with the fan. Sai Kung lime. When the kiln is supposed to be finished, on opening it up the top layer of lime is flaky, and very light and very pure and good, and the second layer or lower down in the mass it becomes courser and is full of partly burned particles of shell, which will not slake. At the bottom of the kiln, you have a still lower grade of lime, and sand, and ash from the grass, and various other burned particles which are not lime. Now, they take off the top layer and they sell it by measure, not by weight. Therefore the lighter it is, and the less they can get into a basket, the more profit they make. That is sold at a higher price than the second, of number two lime, which is the next layer, or the number three lime, which is the bottom layer. If we, as Architects, give a great deal of trouble to the contractor, and insist upon having lime that will stand our test, they are obliged to buy number two. Occasionally they adulterate it with number three, but after a time, we are able to get number two. But the moment a contractor finds we insist upon having number two, he puts up the price of his concrete, his mortar and everything in which lime is used. The ordinary lime you see carried about in baskets in this Colony is a mixture of two and three, with a good deal of sand added during transit from the lime burners' works to the market, wherever it may be. It is a common thing to see the old women on the Peak roads scraping up the red sand and putting it into the lime.

The Chairman. That is because they have spilled some of it?

1

A: What they do really is: They lighten their baskets at the bottom of the hill by throwing away the good lime, and when they get to the top, they add a little water or red sand to add up the weight of the basket. That is a common thing, which I have watched myself.

Q-There are tricks in every trade, I suppose. What is the difference in price between the various kinds?

A. I dont know the price, because it is difficult to get anyone to tell the truth, but there is a difference, number one is double the price of number three, and the contractors allege that they are unable to buy one or two, unless they buy three as well.

Q. Is number one used exclusively for ceiling and lighter work of that sort?

A. Yes.

Mr. Shelton Hooper.-Is this line made from coral, the same as that made from oyster shells?

A.-Similar, as far as we are concerned.

Q.-The richness of it?

A. Yes, it is a little lighter, and there is rather more sand.

Q-Isn't it too rich really for using it for floors?

A.-No, I have never found tha:.

A

Q-There is an authority I want to quote to you, which contains a suggestion you may or may not have known of. (Burnell's Limes, Cerments and Mortars &c."

page 37). "At Utrecht, and in Holland generally, oyster shells are burned in large quantities for the purpose of obtaining lime; but as the carbonate of lime they contaiu exists in a great state of purity, the lime is too rich to be employed without the admixture of trass puzzolano".

case ?

A. That would be similar to what is known here as kaolin,

Q-Could we not find a substitute for this trass puzzalano, and that would meet the