Cabinet 53: Stones

The Stone Age is not over! Whether nestled in a dark corner of the gall bladder or hurtling toward us at fearsome speeds from the Kuyper Belt, whether yielding to the sculptor's delicate chisel or used to decorate the human body, stones continue be an integral part of sociopolitical economies. Cabinet 53, with a special section on "Stones," features an interview with Robert Proctor on the establishment in the nineteenth century of the now-familiar scale used to value gemstones and the rise of the once-lowly diamond; Brooke Holmes on stones in love; Hugh Raffles on the history of the London Stone; and Richard Klein on the anthropomorphic erratics of Fairfield County, Conneticut. Elsewhere in the issue, Steve Rowell's annotated map of Washington, DC's influential think tanks, political action committees and lobbying groups; Jude Stewart on the color crimson; and Katherine Hunt on the influence that "change-ringing," a complex mode of church bell ringing devised in England, had on seventeenth-century mathematics and linguistics.