The Earth would be damaged by the quarrying.

And just as if any one asks about natural stones ... as to whence they were cut, it is possible to declare and say that they are cut and hewn from some place or other -- a thing whereof also a building in our country is a witness to us -- it is right, moreover, to ask whence had this Earth (such resources) that these Stones were cut from it. For it is clear [Cf. p. xxx. l. 29.] that they were made either from something or from nothing. For they cannot say that it exists of itself; for . . . refutes them. And, therefore, let the great deep and abyss which is in that quarry, from which these Stones were cut, refute them. And when BÂN, the Builder, built to make the Grave [Cf. pp. xxx., xlvii.] for the Darkness, he made that great pit in his Domain for the Sons of his Domain. And whence was the deficiency [P. 95.] of that Earth filled up (again) ; for if it was fair before it [lxxvi] became lacking, it was exceedingly and endlessly disfigured after it had been cut.

Thus, the idle tales have become and are a laughingstock. For if the stone-cutters operate on that Earth, they are at the same time carrying it forth into the Domain of the Darkness. And if it has not a nature to remain in a Domain which is not its own, then how does it imprison in a Grave built from itself the Darkness which is foreign to its nature?