Bluestone magic

Now the BBC website has picked up on all that codswallop about the healing Preseli bluestones and the Japanese buying up bluestone jewellery by the tonne......
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/wiltshire/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_9286000/9286823.stm
I suppose it would be too much to expect them to check on the facts and to play down some of the hyperbole contained within the press release from our Preseli Bluestone friends!

Extract:

Stonehenge stones exported to Japan in large quantities

The Japanese believe that Stonehenge's bluestone hosts the spirit of Merlin

Large quantities of Stonehenge stone are being purchased by the Japanese market.
The Welsh bluestone which was used to build the ancient monument 5,000 years ago, is found in a remote area of Pembrokeshire.
The only company in the world licensed to extract and supply the stone is Preseli Bluestone Ltd.
"What I have is exclusivity to use the stone," said spokesman Colin Shearling.
"All the stone that's out there - all over the world - comes from us."
The small company secured the rights to legally quarry limited quantities of Preseli Bluestone 10 years ago.
Now it is the sole supplier of Bluestone jewellery and artefacts to the English Heritage gift shop at Stonehenge for tourists wanting to "own a piece of genuine Stonehenge."  ..........- etc etc etc

Lots more hype here -- and quite a lot of opinion dressed up as fact:
http://www.stonehengestones.com/cgi-bin/ston.cgi

From a geological point of view, a rival bluestone marketing concern is rather more entertaining:

http://www.loststones.co.uk/single_stones_45.html

This site contains many excellent photos of the lumps of spotted dolerite and smoothed and shaped "spotted dolerite products" than are yours for a price.  If you browse around the site you will see that the products are aimed at a quite esoteric market -- but the images show just how interesting and variable the spotted dolerites are -- with the spots sometimes white and sometimes cream, and sometimes large and sometimes small.  These appear to be genuine spotted dolerites   --- and one has to say that many of them are quite beautiful!