QUARRY, a place under ground, out of which are got marble, free-stone, slate, limestone, or other matters proper for building. See STRATA.
Some lime-stone quarries in Fife are highly worthy the attention of the curious, on account of an amazing mixture of sea-bodies found in them. One of this kind was opened, about the year 1759, at a farm called Endersteel, in the neighbourhood of Kirkcaldy, belonging to General St Clair.
The flakes of the stone, which are of unequal thickness, most of them from eight to ten inches, lie horizontally dipping towards the sea. Each of these flakes, when broken, presents to our view an amazing collection of petrified sea-bodies, as the bones of fishes, stalks of sea-weed, vast quantities of shells, such as are commonly found on those coasts, besides several others of very uncommon figures. In some places the shells are so numerous, that little else is to be seen but prodigious clusters or concretions of them. In the uppermost stratum the shells are so entire, that the outer crust or plate may be scraped off with the finger; and the stalks of the sea-weed have a darkish colour, not that glossy whiteness which they have in the heart of the quarry. The smallest rays or veins of the shells are deeply indented on the stone, like the impression
Quarry of a seal upon wax. In short, no spot at the bottom of the ocean could exhibit a greater quantity of sea-bodies than are to be found in this solid rock; for we have the skeletons of several fishes, the antennæ or feelers of lobsters, the roots and stalks of sea-weeds, with the very sappulse which contain the seed. The place where all these curiosities are found, is on an eminence about an English mile from the sea; and as the ground is pretty steep the whole way, it may be 200 feet higher at least.
There are two or three things to be remarked here. 1. That among all the bodies we have mentioned, there are none but what are specifically heavier than water. This holds so constantly true, that the sea-weed, which floats in water when the plant is entire, has been stripped of the broad leaves, which make it buoyant, before it has been lodged here. 2. The shells have been all empty; for the double ones, as those of the flat kind, are always found single, or with one side only. 3. The rock seems to have been gradually deserted by the sea, and, for a long time, washed with the tides; for the upper surface is all eaten, and hollowed in many places like an honey-comb, just as we observe in flat rocks exposed every tide to the access and recess of the waters. See the article SEA.