Marbles have been around for a long time. There are paintings dating to ancient Egypt that show people playing games with what look like marbles (but they were most likely ground and polished animal knuckles). Tiny marble spheres were found in the ruins of Pompeii, and there's evidence that Native Americans made marbles from stones, polished smooth by river water. Marble like rocks and bones were used as toys by kids in colonial American and into the 1800s.
Why are marbles called marbles? Because they were once made out of marble. In the 19th century, leftover marble (or alabaster) chunks from industrial processing were broken down, heated, and re-formed into tiny spheres. Marketed as a child's toy, they were sold for about a penny each in the 1870s. Kids called them "alleys" becasue they were often made from alabaster.
Marbles as a game took off in popularity when the marbles became cheaper....because they weren't made out of marble anymore. Mass production of clay "marbles" began in 1884 by an Ohio fabricator named Sam Dyke. Using a wooden block with six indentations, he poured in six lumps of soft clay. He then rolled a wooden paddle back and forth over the clay balls, shaping them into six spheres, which were then dried in a kiln. The molded clay marbles, called "brownies" (because they were brown), sold so well that by 1900, Dyke had 350 employees and was making a million marbles every DAY! Cost: still a penny, but you got 30 marbles for that price!
Because Akron was the center of clay marble manufacturing, it's also where mass production of glass marbles began, around 1915. Industrialist M.F. Christensen created a machine, similar to Dyke's wooden block, that had a divot for a dollop of molten glass, placed between two cylinders. As the cylinders rotated, the motlen glass was shaped into a sphere and moved through the machine. This is more or less how marbles have been made ever since.
Today, we use marbles to play 'Chinese Checkers,' 'Aggravation,' 'Mancala,' 'Ker-plunk,' 'Marble Solitaire,' and of course, there are still those that play the traditional game of marbles where there is a 10 foot circle and players take turns trying to knock marbles out of the circle using their larger "shooter" marble. The US National Marbles Tournament has been held every year since 1922, in Wildwood, New Jersey. The World Championship is played every year on Good Friday, in West Sussex, England in the Greyhound Inn and PUB.
There is a very nice "FIRST TO FIND" prize in the cache, it even has a picture of our 16th president on it! Again, please put the cache back as you found it!