Comment Post

Re: Craig Phadraig by Anonymous on Wednesday, 13 March 2002

Some ancient Scottish stone forts, such as Craig Phadraig at Inverness,
posess stone walls where the granite has been melted and fused together.
The extremely high temperatures that would be needed in order to accomplish
this would be almost impossible to produce by burning large amounts of wood
or charcoal. People seem to easily accept that the melted stones must have
been fused by a conventional fire, end of mystery, but I find it difficult
to accept this explanation.

I have heard a report that there has been at least one serious attempt where
a team of modern researchers tried to build a large wood fire against a
freshly assembled granite wall. Supposedly, the attempt also included the
use of a large quantity of high quality charcoal, plus a large bellows, but
the attempt failed.

Would you have any knowledge of who or what organization actually conducted
this experiment?

I am reasonably sure that I know how I would have melted the granite stones.
It would be possible to accomplish this feat by using commonly available
materials, and the modest resources that were available centuries ago.
Before speculating about how the deed was actually done, it would be good to
check on the results of the wood fire experiment to confirm that a normal
fire can not offer a sufficient explanation. Then, by elimination, the only
available other (natural) explanation would seem to be necessary.

Respectfully,

Bill Triplett
Lexington Park, Maryland, USA

Something is not right. This message is just to keep things from messing up down the road