Have you ever really looked closely at a rock?

If you look from afar, it just looks gray. But if you look closer, many more colors will start to appear; specks of black, or white, and some that are transparent.

Actually, granite is not composed of a single substance. What’s more, it contains a combination of many other minerals like quartz, feldspar, and mica. For instance, the clear specks are quartz; white and other light-colored particles are feldspar; the blackish specks are mica, and so on. In essence, the patterning you see in quartz is made up of these specks of different substances.

That’s why, even though we call all of it “granite,” each sample has a different face. Depending on the substances and crystals mixed into it, different characteristics such as colors, patterns and textures emerge. Just like human beings, rocks all have different “faces.”

Now, let’s take a moment to look at a stone from Hiro Island, one of the Shiwaku chain in the Seto Inland Sea. On this island you can find blue-tinged granite.

Although, when we say “blue,” we don’t mean like the sky or ocean; you’ll find faint traces of blue within gray. Instead of looking closer, you’ll notice the difference when looking from a distance. This odd color is but one of the many “faces” of this island.

Far from a monolith, the color, grain size, and properties of granite all differ depending on where it was formed. Experts can recognize the “faces” of the stone this way.

Now, having listened this far, try to recall it once again. Yes, the stone you touched at the entrance. What color was it? Was it white or something close to it? Or maybe gray? Did it have lots of little black grains? Or perhaps…you sensed a touch of blue in it?

See the colors. See the grains. Thus, you see the “face” of the stone. You’ll gain an idea of the stone’s origin this way.