Clark Briggs, age 10, of Dallas, Texas, for his question:

How are marbles made?

Come spring, a boy polishes up his marbles and goes forth to test his shooting thumb. This was so in his father's young days. It was so in his grandfathers young days, Even thousands of years ago spring was the signal for the opening of the marbles season,, For marbles is one of the oldest games in the world,

In olden days, the little round balls were made of real marble, That is, the rich boys played marbles with marble marbles, The poorer boys played with marbles made of baked clay. But, of course, so long as the little balls were true spheres, everybody had the same amount of fun.

And aggies, they too go back for ages.  The original striped beauties were made of a variegated stone called agate, We still call them agates, or aggies for short, even though most of our striped smoothies are made of colored glass.

A generation ago most,, if not all of our marbles were sent to us from Germany. Plain marbles were made from a special limestone found in Saxorfa. One little marble mill could turn out 20,000 in a week, The mill was a flat stone block, It had rounded grooves five‑eighths of an inch in width. The quarried stone was broken into small squares and then fitted into the furrows. Then a heavy oak beam was rotated over the mill, In about 15 minutes it rubbed the bits of stone into perfectly rounded marbles,

Aggies made from real agate were also turned in the mills, However agate is a harder stone, The little chunks had to be cut into almost spheres before the grinding began ‑ otherwise they would take forever and probably wear out the mill.

Nowadays, most of our ordinary, plain‑colored marbles come from Ohio, These smooth, servicable fellows are made from baked clay. Damp clay is pressed into molds and sent through a furnace, When hard and cool they are buffered into perfect spheres, Then they are given a coat of color and a shiny glaze.  One more trip through the furnace and they are ready to roll in the marbles championship at Asbury Park, New Jersey.

Other up‑to‑date marbles are made from glass. The glass for ordinary marbles is mach from simple substances. The basic recipe is sand, soda end limo. The tough job is to bring the mixture to the right temperature, for these ingredients will not melt together and form glass without some 3,000 degrees of heat. At this terrific temperature the glass is soft enough to be molded or pressed into any shape,

Each color in a beautiful glass aggie is mixed in a separate brew. The proper amounts of copper give greens or blues, Specks of iron or chromium can also turn glass green. Most shades of red are made by adding a speck of stuff called selenium. Threads of‑these lovely colors are woven together when the glass is cooling through its plastic stage.

Now, let's knuckle down and play for fun or play for keeps, for the marble season is in full swing.