The decorative fountain has a mock-Gothic architectural frame and the red granite drinking trough is supported on a twisted all'antica or early Christian column. This is very much more elaborate than the simple granite fountains which Melly had provided for Liverpool, discussed below. It may have been designed by Robert Kerr, the architect responsible for the clock tower of 1850. It can be found at the East End of the Guildhall
(More information on the fountain further down. BUT first the earth lesson.)
Granite
Granite, which makes up 70–80% of Earth’s crust , is an igneous rock formed of interlocking crystals of quartz , feldspar , mica, and other minerals in lesser quantities. Large masses of granite are a major ingredient of mountain ranges. Granite is a plutonic rock, meaning that it forms deep underground. Slow cooling gives atoms time to migrate to the surfaces of growing crystals, resulting in a coarse or mottled crystalline structure easily visible to the naked eye.
Geologists have debated rival theories of granite's origin for over 150 years. The two theories most favored today are the magmatic theory and the hypermetamorphic theory. Supporters of the magmatic theory observe that granite is strongly associated with mountain ranges, which in turn tend to follow continental edges where one plate is being subducted (wedged under another). Tens of kilometers beneath the continental edge, the pressure and friction caused by subduction are sufficient to melt large amounts of rock. This melted rock or magma ascends toward the surface as large globules or plutons, each containing many cubic kilometers of magma. Apluton does not emerge suddenly onto the surface but remains trapped underground, where it cools slowly and may be repeatedly injected from beneath with pulses of fresh magma. To become surface rock, a solidified pluton must finally be uplifted to the surface and stripped bare by erosion.
The ultrametamorphic theory, in contrast, argues that granite is not formed from raw magma but consists of sedimentary rock thoroughly melted and re-crystallized. Most geologists now argue that granites can be formed by magmatism, ultrametamorphosis, or a combination of both.
Until recently, geologists thought that plutons of granitic magma would require millions of years to ascend to the surface. However, laboratory experiments with melted rock has shown that granitic magma is thin and runny enough (i.e., of low viscosity) to squirt rapidly upward to the surface through small cracks in the crust. Granite plutons may thus be created in 1,000–100,000 years, rather than in the millions of years previously thought. The precise origin and process of granite formation continues to be a subject of active research.
Xenolith
A xenolith is a rock fragment which becomes enveloped in a larger rock during the latter's development and hardening. In geology, the term xenolith is almost exclusively used to describe inclusions in igneous rock during magma emplacement and eruption. Xenoliths may be engulfed along the margins of a magma chamber, torn loose from the walls of an erupting lava conduit or explosive diatreme or picked up along the base of a flowing lava on Earth's surface. A xenocryst is an individual foreign crystal included within an igneous body. Examples of xenocrysts are quartz crystals in a silica-deficient lava and diamonds within kimberlite diatremes.
(Examples of xenolith in larger stone)
Although the term xenolith is most commonly associated with igneous inclusions, a broad definition could include rock fragments which have become encased in sedimentary rock. Xenoliths are sometimes found in recovered meteorites.
To be considered a true xenolith, the included rock must be identifiably different from the rock in which it is enveloped; an included rock of similar type is called an autolith or a cognate inclusion.
Xenoliths and xenocrysts provide important information about the composition of the otherwise inaccessible mantle. Basalts, kimberlites, lamproites and lamprophyres, which have their source in the upper mantle, often contain fragments and crystals assumed to be a part of the originating mantle mineralogy. Xenoliths of dunite, peridotite and spinel lherzolite in basaltic lava flows are one example. Kimberlites contain, in addition to diamond xenocrysts, fragments of lherzolites of varying composition. The aluminium-bearing minerals of these fragments provide clues to the depth of origin. Calcic plagioclase is stable to 25 km depth. Between 25 km and about 60 km, spinel is the stable aluminium phase. At depths greater than about 60 km, dense garnet becomes the aluminium-bearing mineral. Some kimberlites contain xenoliths of eclogite, which is considered to be the high-pressure metamorphic product of oceanic basaltic crust, as it descends into the mantle along subduction zones.
To log this cache.
To get to log this cache you will have to visit and answer the questions which are related to the coordinates given the earthcache.
When answers are collected, send them to CO for verification.
As I own about 50 earthcaches there are MANY mails/messages to answer back on, and I will not always be able to answer right-back, BUT I READ ALL SENT ANSWERS AND LOGS, so if anything is not correct or need an upgrade, you will indeed hear back from me.
Thanks for your understanding, and for picking one of my caches.
You can log immediately answers are sent CO. If there are any questions about your answers CO will contact you.
Logs without answers to CO or with pending questions from CO will be deleted without any further notice.
Please do not include pictures in your log that may answer the questions.
Questions
1. Answer the questions under by visiting the Coordinates.
A. What type of stone is used for the fountain? (Answer can be found at GZ)
B. Can you see any of the three materials of the type of stone at gz, and what are they? (Answer can be found at GZ)
C. Look for a dark patch (Xenolith) in the stone?(If not found, use the photo in the description). Is the shape of it rounded or angular. Can you give a reason for its shape?
D. Look at several of the rectangular crystals in the stone. Measure their length, average their size and then tell if the rock is coarse, medium, or fine grained, by using the following scale:
- coarse crystals over 5mm in length,
- medium crystals between 1-5 mm in length
- fine crystal less than 1mm in length . (Answer can be found at GZ)
2. Take a photo of yourself, the group or your GPS when logging the cache.
Without revealing any answers!
(It’s voluntary to post a photo in your online log)
Melly’s Fountain – Guildhall
Description: The provision of a drinking fountain fits with the Victorian response to the discovery in 1854 by John Snow (1813-1858) that cholera was spread by contaminated drinking water, and with a philanthropical movement initiated by Charles Pierre Melly (1829 – 1888?). Melly was born in in Tuebrook (a suburb of Liverpool), to a Swiss father from Geneva, who had gained English citizenship. Charles Melly became a cotton merchant in Liverpool & Manchester, an officer in the Childwall Rifles and a philanthropist. He was involved in planning Sefton Park, Liverpool, having persuaded Lord Derby to donate land. He founded the North East Mission; the first night school, in Beaufort Street; and the Liverpool Gymnasium, in Myrtle Street. Concerned for Liverpools poor, he provided free playgrounds for children and benches for the elderly, and, having seen the difficulties of the lamplighters, he introduced a system he had seen in Geneva, replacing ladders with long poles. In 1852, having been told of the dock workers and immigrants need for fresh drinking water - their only alternative being the public house - he proposed the provision of free drinking fountains, based on those in Geneva. Initially, he set up a number of taps near the docks, providing fresh water, but these proved so popular (on one occasion, in a 12 hour period, they were used by not less than 2336 people!) that they wore out in two years. In 1854, at the south end of Princes Dock, Melly set up the first red granite fountain, and by 1858 he had supplied Liverpool with 43 fountains, with water spouts including lions, tigers and satyrs heads, and all at a cost of 10 each. Attached to dock walls, church walls, railway station buildings and bridges, and other places where they would be most useful for the poor. Mellys fame spread, and a paper which he presented to the Liverpool meeting of the national Association for the Promotion of Social Science in 1858, outlining his work in the city, was taken up by Samuel Gurney MP (1813-1882) a nephew of the Quaker prison reformer Elizabeth Fry, MP for Penryn, 1857-65, and a founder of the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain & Cattle Trough Association. Although Gurney lived in Surrey and at Regent's Park he was one of the members of the Norwich based Overend and Gurney Bank not to have been damaged by their crash in 1866, a connection which may have prompted Melly to have presented one of his drinking fountains to Norwich and may explain its prominent position at the east end of the Guildhall, still the City's town hall. The need for the fountain is a further indication of the decline of the city's once great textile business, which by the 1850s had failed to keep up with Manchester in the use of the power looms. This resulted in large-scale unemployment and unrest among the citys weavers, compounded by the appalling quality of the water, noted in a report for the General Board of Health in 1851. The Wensum was 'thoroughly and irremediably' polluted with domestic and industrial waste, although piped water had become available following the establishment of a new water company in 1850 (see under NFnrNOR228). Following Melly's example Samuel Gurney set up Londons first fountain on the wall of St Sepulchre, Holburn in 1859. Melly's example and Snow's discovery of the link between contaminated water and cholera was to result in widespread commissions for fountains and water pumps, including in Norwich the Gurney obelisk of 1860 on Tombland (designed by John Bell) and that endowed by Sir John Boileau in 1869 for the Newmarket and Ipswich roads, see under Newmarket Road.
Inscriptions: In centre: 1859/ PRESENTED BY. CHARLES P. MELLY Shield to left: C.M. (for Charles Melly) To right: S.R (Salve Regina - God save the Queen)
