THE LIME-BURNERS.

Hokitika Guardian, 6 September 1924, Page 4

THE LIME-BURNERS.

Drilling lazily over the fields, draping the landscape in a filmy white veil, are big soft clouds that show where the lime-burners arc ai work, -avs a "Country Hill” in the "Daily Mail.” All day the hazy vapours rise I min out their fumy tires; by night, the sullen glow ol ihe furnaces is like the watchl id eye ol some brooding spirit of darkness.

I lie white walls of the limestone quarry, "green-topped and gleaming in the sun, make a picturesque hackground to the men who work with pickaxe and shovel to supply the builder's wants. Tlie chinch, as the marly substance is called, grows in layers, greywhite or pinkish ot hue. Pield poppies, vivid and dazzling, tleck the walls with scarlet splendour here and there.

'The kilns are funicular in shape, sunk well like into the ground ; those in use are filled with the burning limestone; some deep cones are empty, and one can poor down to the narrowshaft at the bottom.

A rough-hewn (light of stairs leads underground to the bottom of the furnaves; the great round buttresses and the rounded arching roof are at first sight reminiscent of a Norman castle. At the base of the buttress are the shafts of tlie kiln, down which the burnt lime is drawn in rough biscuitcoloured lumps. For about twelve hours the marl must he burned. The lime-burners know to a nicety when it has been suh-j jected to sufficient heat.

Dinvn below, they work with big gaily patterned handkerchiefs tied oyer nose and mouth; the lime-burner shovels out the lime from the shaft and fills the sack his companion is holding agape. Clouds of fine soft dust nr-

company the operation, smothering the men and making a thick soft carpet in the passages that run right and left. It gets in one’s eyes, one’s nose and month, and leaves a slightly acrid impression on the tongue. As each sack is filled one of the men carries -it upstairs on his hack and dumps it in the waiting builder’s dray. Neither the horse nor yet the dog resting near pays the least attention to the whirling dust. They do not sneeze or even blink. Those who live near the lime-kilns have great faith in their health-giving properties. The fumes, they contend,, cure colds, and children suffering from whooping-cough are often made to visit them so that they may inhale ihe healing vapours. i sgggggsg