Here I am again as Mr. Nature, to tell you about a rare and mysterious aspect of God’s creation. It’s possible you’ve never heard of it before.
What would you think, if you tapped a good-sized rock with a hammer and instead of going “clunk” or “clack,” it rang out with a nice, musical “ting”–just like a bell? Is that cool, or what? I’ve done it. Wow!
They’re called “ringing rocks,” and can only be found at seven sites in all the world: one each in England, Scotland, Australia, and Mexico, one in Montana, and two in eastern Pennsylvania.
At Ringing Rocks Park in Pennsylvania, you find several acres of land covered with boulders. When I went there, years ago, you were allowed to climb and walk around on them. I don’t know if you still can. But the big thing is the way a rock will sound a musical note when you hit it–not all of them, but many. If you had the patience and the time for a trial-and-error search, you could play “Happy Birthday” on a series of boulders.
What makes the rocks ring? After a hundred years of study, nobody knows. Something inside the rock, some kind of energy, makes it ring when struck. If you break the rock, neither piece will ring anymore. It’s like something spilled out when you broke it. The rocks in one of the fields won’t ring individually if you remove them from the field; but this is not true of the rocks in the other field a few miles away.
What makes them ring? We dunno. Why is this so rare? No way to answer that. You never quite get to the bottom of anything that God has done.
I think He did it that way on purpose.
P.S.: The link I gave you only provides an aerial map of the Ringing Rocks Park area, and no further information. Grrr! Look up “ringing rocks” on Wikipedia.
Wow, Lee! Now we have “Bell Fields” as well as “Bell Mountain”. Maybe you can start up a whole new fantasy series!
Keep up the good work, Lee. We (my family) pray for you as you write, that your work will challenge (and change) the way people (including ourselves) read the Scripture and think about God and about our place in His world.
Thank you very much for that! It made my day.
Some of the rocks won’t ring if removed from the field? That’s almost scary.
It brings to mind the bible verse which tells us eye has not seen and ear has not heard the wonders in store for us. This is truly a fallen world, after the restitution of all things was may be in for some real surprises.
Scary or not, it’s certainly puzzling.
We also wonder why ringing rocks are found in so few places. And there doesn’t seem to be anything about those places to account for it.
Ringing Rocks Park in Pennsylvania is just one of many boulder fields deposited by the last glaciers in the area. There are a lot of boulder fields, and in almost all of them, the rocks are just plain rocks.
It definitely has my curiosity perked up.
God’s stuff is so awesome! Even rocks have voices. Who could have even imagined such things? Well – maybe Lee 🙂