Tuesday, May 23, 2023

From The Archives Of Cool

 
Ailsa Craig is a small granite island in the Firth of Clyde off the coast of Scotland. The island is a bird sanctuary home to large numbers of various species of birds including gannets, razorbills, kittiwakes, herring gulls, shags, fulmars, puffins and black-backed gulls.

Ailsa Craig is also the world's major supplier of a rare type of micro-granite with a highly-interlocked, finely-grained mineral structure free of quartz, which is used to make stones for the sport of curling. More than two-thirds of all curling stones originate from this tiny volcanic pug.


 
 
 
The manufacture of curling stones on an industrial scale has never been common, perhaps because the product is so durable. Particularly when the game was almost solely played outdoors, stones hardly ever wore out - though some were broken in play - and were handed down from grandfather to son and grandson.

 

1 comment:

Debra She Who Seeks said...

Fascinating! I never knew where curling stones came from before. Interesting about the necessity for no quartz in the granite.