The Marble Works

The Marble Works fill the seaward end of the Industrial District, where the quarry-barges come in laden with pale stone. Under great timber gantry-cranes the masons rough out and carve the blocks, and the statuary, the bridge-courses, the column-drums and the carved fronts of half the city begin here as rough stone under the chisel. The air is bright with marble dust, and the yards ring with the slow music of mallet and point.

The Works supply the whole island: the column-drums and pediments of the Helion, the balustrades and statues of the bridges, and the long galleries of marble in which the art of the island is kept. The finest stone is set aside for the sculptors; Vaitia of the Marble chooses her own blocks at the quarry and has them roughed here before they come to her bench.

The masons are a guild of ancient standing and famous patience, and the public galleries above the yards are a favourite of visitors, who come to watch a figure emerge, over weeks, from a block that arrived shapeless on a barge.