Duncan's Masonic Ritual and Monitor - Rose Croix

MARK OF A MARK MASTER MASON.
Footnotes
150:1 This Degree is said to have been instituted to detect impostors, in paying the wages
to the craftsmen, as we have just seen. It is a well-known fact, that such a system of
distinction was practised in the Masonry of all ages. Mr. Godwin, speaking of buildings
of more modern construction than the Temple of Solomon, says: "The marks, it can
hardly be doubted, were made to distinguish the work of different individuals. At the
present time, the man who works a atone (being different from the man who sets it)
makes his mark on the bed or other internal face of it, so that it may be identified.--
Historical Landmarks, vol. i., p. 427.
160:1 By the influence of the Mark Master's Degree, the work of every operative Mason
was distinctly known. The perfect stones were received with acclamations; while those
that were deficient were rejected with disdain. This arrangement proved a superior
stimulus to exertion, which accounts for the high finish which the Temple subsequently
acquired.--Historical Landmarks, vol. i. p. 421.
164:1 There can be no doubt that the quarries from whence the Masons received their
materials were situated very near to the Temple. Mr. Prime visited one of these quarries,
situated beneath the City of Jerusalem, in 1856, and thus speaks of it: "One thing to me is
very manifest. There has been solid stone taken from this excavation sufficient to build
the walls of Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon. The size of many of the stones taken
from here appears to be very great. I know of no place to which the stone can have been
carried but to these works, and I know of no other quarries in the neighborhood from
which the great stone of the walls would seem to have come. These two connected ideas
impelled me strongly toward the belief that this was the ancient quarry whence the city
was built; and when the magnitude of the excavation between the two opposing hills and
of this cavern is considered, it is, to say the least of it, a difficult question to answer, what
has become of the stone once here, on any other theory than that I have suggested."--
Tent-Life in the Holy Land, p. 113.
Another modern traveller, speaking of this quarry, says: "I have penetrated it for nearly
half a mile, and seen there many large stones already cut, which were prepared for work
but never removed. This new discovery is one of the greatest wonders of Jerusalem. It
seems to extend under the Temple itself, and the stones were all finished and dressed