Using stone in the presence of fire

Quoted text begins. > I propose an experiment, everybody please throw your local
geology to the > fire and post what it does. twice dry, twice
soaked 2 days, thrown to the
> eye of a well pitched hardwood fire for 2 or 3 hours.
End of quote.

Quoted text begins.Not much on experimenting (quit that years ago), but I do have
some experience with the mixing of limestone (and marble,
alabaster, and soapstone) fire, and water.
End of quote.

me again, this IS getting interesting.

Daedulus' suggestion of throwing stone into a hot fire made me thing
of something I once heard: that if you throw a frog in hot water
he'll just jump out, but if you put him in cold water and gradually
increase the temperature, the result might be - frog soup. as an
experiment one might better build small hearths of different sorts of
stone (I imagine that this has already been done), making fires in
them and seeing what hoppen.

John's story of the destruction by fire of his studio and the
sculptures therein makes one wonder what might have happened without
the introduction of water. and reminds me of Scottish brochs, large
thick-walled dry laid stone towers built by the precursors of the
Picts and Celts. I've heard that some of them had vitrified
interiors. there is evidently some controversy about whether the
builders fired the walls themselves to seal the joints or if it
occurred during an invasion by hostile forces. (what sort of stone
could they have been built of?)

to Dawn I would say: use firebrick for hearth and surround in a
fireplace, but it's probably safe to use limestone around a
freestanding stove.

Tomas