Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1893 — Your Hone’s Not Stone. [ARTICLE]

Your Hone’s Not Stone.

St. Louis Globs Democrat “When I was in Ireland last summer,” said Henry P. Smyth at the Lindell, “I saw the strange lake out of which most of the razor' hones of the world come. The water of this lake has the power of petrifying any substance that may be to put into it. The product is not- actual stone, but stone material is deposited in the cells and hardens there, giving wood or anything else the appearance of having been turned to stone. An English cutlery firm had a man examine the lake —Lough Neagh is its name—with the result that they get their supply of hones frcin it. Pieces of hard wood are immersed in the lake and allowed to remain there about two weeks These hones are now a famous product of this firm, but the razor sharpening world little knows that the stone is, so t< speak, wood petrified in two weeks in the largest of the Irish lakes."