If you’ve visited the new McManus Galleries in Dundee you may have run into an old friend, namely, Robert Burns. The statue of Rabbie was designed by John Steell and has been in place in Albert Square since the 16th of October 1880. This statue is a copy of the original which can be found in Central Park in New York City. There are two other copies; one in Dunedin, New Zealand, and one in London. The inscription in the granite is an excerpt from the poem "To Mary in Heaven", in memory of his lover, "Highland" Mary Campbell. The Dundee statue was unveiled to an estimated crowd of 40,000 people (around a third of the population of Dundee at the time). A year earlier, a 20-ton block of polished Peterhead granite was installed which would act as the base of the statue. Peterhead granite was quarried commercially in the 18th and 19th centuries and utilised in buildings and constructions far and wide. In addition to the base of Rabbie’s statue in Dundee, it was also used for the original fountains in Trafalgar Square in London. Now let’s take a look at the granite itself and see why it was so often used as a building material.
The opening of the Burns statue in 1880.
Granite
Granite is an igneous rock; meaning that it was formed by the cooling of lava or magma. Granite is an intrusive igneous rock because it cools underground. Larger crystals form in the rock because it cools so slowly underneath the ground. It is mostly composed of quartz and feldspar and generally has a lighter colour such as; red, pink, grey or white. Granite is a very hard rock, which is one of the reasons that it is so often used in construction. Indeed, it is less susceptible to erosion than other rocks such as sandstone, making it an ideal construction material.
Granite takes its name from the Latin word “granum”, meaning grain, which describes the varied structure of the rock. If you look at the granite base of the statue, you can see several different grains within the granite itself. This variation is one of the reasons that granite is so often used for ornamental purposes. Granite is used across the world for ornamental purposes; from kitchen counter-tops to the statues at Mount Rushmore in the US.
Peterhead Granite
Unlike the granite that was mostly used in the construction of Aberdeen, Peterhead granite has a deeper, red colour. It has its red colour due to the phenocrysts (large crystals in the rock, normally larger than 0.5mm in diameter) of orthoclase feldspar, together with grey quartz and black hornblende. Peterhead granite is one of the ‘newer’ granites: it intruded approximately 400 million years ago.
Peterhead granite was mostly quarried during the 18th and 19th centuries up until the the 1950s when the quarries became economically infeasible. It can still be seen in pillars in London, Cambridge and Liverpool as well as here in Dundee! Now that you know a little about granite, it’s time to answer some questions…
The EarthCache
The Burns statue is easily accessible within the centre of Dundee. In order to complete this EarthCache you will need to visit the statue as well as doing some research at home. To log this EarthCache you need to find the answers to the following questions and then send them to us using the "message the owner" feature on the page. Remember if you have internet to log the cache, then you have the internet to email us the answers. We'll be in touch if there are any questions or issues.
So here are the questions to solve this EarthCache;
- Describe the colour of the granite and the grains within it. Explain why the granite has this colour.
- Take a closer look at the grains in the granite. Would you say that the grain size is small or large? What does this tell us about how long the magma that formed the granite took to cool?
- What size are the biggest grains that you can see?
- Name a location where Peterhead granite was quarried.
- During which geological period did Peterhead granite intrude?
- Optional: Include a photo of yourself with Rabbie! No spoilers, please ;)
Good luck and Happy Caching!