By Stanley Greaves
Looking for one thing you discover others. My latest discoveries were three bottles, one filled with a collection of assorted buttons, another with small coloured glass marbles and a third smaller one with special prized rock marbles. Because of my passing interest in geology, some years ago I bought the rock marbles as rock specimens at the Museum Shop after a visit to the Geology Section of the Smithsonian Museum.
On one particular visit to the Geology Section of the Guyana National Museum, I was delighted to see Potarite, a new rock specimen named after the Potaro River area in Guyana where it was first found. The owner of an antique shop was curious about my buying the bottles of buttons and small glass marbles as well as a few larger ones. I had to explain that my purchases reminded me of enthusiastic marble games played in the tenement yard of my boyhood days where buttons were used for placing bets. From reading the William Series of books for boys published in the UK, I learnt that the word “aggies” meant agate marbles made in Scotland that were highly prized. Banded agates are the most beautiful and such stones are actually found in the south west corner of the Rupununi in Guyana.
