Our thanks to reader Ralph Dransfield, an architect, for sending in this photo after seeing the block of Portland limestone pictured in the previous issue of Natural Stone Specialist. Ralph told us: “The photograph of a large block of Portland stone reminded me of our recent visit to Baalbek in Jordan. There, the Romans abandoned (for some reason) a section of stone which had been destined for the Temple of Jupiter. One has to imagine just how many slaves would have been required to shift it the ¹/₂ mile or so to the site for which it was intended.”