Most people do not think to observe geology from the sidewalks of a
major city, but all David B. Williams has to do is look at building
stone in any urban center to find a range of rocks equal to any
assembled by plate tectonics. In Stories in Stone, he takes you on
explorations to find 3.5-billion-year-old rock that looks like swirled
pink-and-black taffy, a gas station made of petrified wood, and a
Florida fort that has withstood three hundred years of attacks and
hurricanes, despite being made of a stone that has the consistency of a
granola bar.
Williams also weaves in the cultural history of stone, explaining why a
white fossil-rich limestone from Indiana became the only building stone
used in all fifty states; how in 1825, the construction of the Bunker
Hill Monument led to America's first commercial railroad; and why when
the same kind of marble used by Michelangelo clad a Chicago skyscraper
it warped so much after nineteen years that all 44,000 panels of it had
to be replaced. This love letter to building stone brings to life the
geology you can see in the structures of every city.