Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1918 — Natural Mortar Beds. [ARTICLE]

Natural Mortar Beds.

Who Invented mortar? Some prehistoric person, who in all likelihood hit upon the combination by sheer luck. The mortar used by the ancient Greeks and Romans was the same stuff that we tfee. But nature was in advance of the human discoverer by some millions of years. In Texas and Kansas, extending over vast areas, is a geological formation known in that region as the “mortar beds.” It is a stratum composed of sand, clay and lime, which, originally fluid, has “set” and become rock. The process by which the sedimentary rocks of the earth were formed is successfully imitated in the sidewalk pavement of artificial stone, which is spread in a moist condition and allowed to dry. It is better for the purpose than natural stone —made in slabs larger than can be quarried and often formed with grooves so as to expand and contract without breaking. .