Granite building stones or not?

[Tomas Lipps <tmlipps@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

to scott, re your trove of granite boulders:

yes, you may, as patrick mcafee suggests, build with
them as they are. ... a freestanding wall would be a
bit of a challenge, particularly if you're as clueless
as you say, but you could use them to make a
(mortarless) retaining wall, or walls ... be sure to
"batter" the wall, that is to say incline the face 10 or
more degrees from vertical so it leans back against the
earth it retains.

OR ... granite is obdurate but obedient, you might take
advantage of its tendency to respond truly to calculated
force ... try splitting the boulders, either by drilling
holes around the "equator" and hammering wedges into
them until the boulder opens ... or, rest the boulder on
a steel rail, the point of contact being on the equator
line and smite the top with a heavy sledge along the
same line ... the shock of the blow will travel through
the boulder to the pressure point below and quite
possibly the boulder will split as intended ... the
likelihood that it will do so will be improved if you
shock the boulder with hammer blows at several places
along the line - the stone registers these shocks and
when you deliver the telling blow - joila! ... the
resulting cleft surface would be the face of the stone
and it can be readily squared by using a handset, also
known as a pitching tool, to blow off the rounded edges
creating planes perpendicular to the face ... this would
give you useful building stones ... a wall assembled of
them, the various colors juxtaposed would be a handsome
thing.