Western Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), Saturday 2 May 1908, page 33


DONNYBROOK STONE.

(See Illustrations.)

Among our illustrations arc samo

viewB dealing with the Donnybrook /; quarries. Donnybrook stone has bee«

extensively used in local buildings, not- >ï,ï

abív the Supreme Court buildings, the police courts, the new ari gallery, tho Customs House, at Fremantle. iJie Fre-mantle railway buildings and post-of

fice, etc. It is claimed that a tram-way from the quarrying centre to the Donnybrook railway station is necessary to the prosperity of the industry, owing to the high cost of cartage to the sta-tion. Air. Alexander, the president of the Builders and Contractors' Asso-ciation, is the owner of a quarry at Donnybrook, and he recently stated that it costs him on an average from 6s. to 7s. per ton to convey the stone from the quarries to the trucks. It is contended that the construction of a tramway would not only mean a further reduction in cost to the users, and en-courage local trade, and thus give ad-ditional employment for masons, but it would result in a better class of buildings being erected in the various populated centres of the State.

At the present time, because of the difficulties in cartage, only large stone can be used. There is naturally a large quantity of small stone which might be squared up in rubhle work for building purposes, and this is valuable stuff, but at present it goes to waste in the quarry The tramway would al-low of its being placed upon the mar-ket, and this naturally would tend to tba reduction of the cost of the produc-tion of large stone. The Railway De-

partment would reap increased revenue \ from thc large volume of trade which would thus be brought about. Apart from the construction of this tramway, the Department has endeavoured to fa-cilitate the conveyance bf Donnybrook stone-to some extent, and recently con-structed a powerful crane at the Don-nybrook station to take the place of a rather small one. which had hampered to a considerable extent the operations of thc producéis of the sjxmo.