My friends - I am dropping by today to give you the solution to the latest Skills Puzzler, which was concerned with grave markers, and what we can read from them. We had a good response to this one - 38 folks sent their thoughts on this to me, and everyone was able to spot at least one of the clues. As you will recall, we had a scenario in which a researcher had found a marble grave marker for Rupert Dinwiddie in one cemetery, and then, as she researched further, she found a limestone based marker, sitting on a cement base, in another cemetery for the same man - the birth dates were identical, but the death dates had different years. Both markers appeared to have weathered about identically. Our task was to determine which marker would be the more likely one to be correct. The really definitive clue to this Puzzler is in the fact that the limestone marker had a cement base under it. Cement(not concrete) was not used in this country until after 1823, as its components were not discovered until about 1820. That being the case, we know that the marker with the cement base was erected much later than the other stone, and, even though the weathering of each stone appeared to be about the same, limestone based markers will usually wear much faster than those of marble or solid granite. So the marble marker is the one we would feel is the more accurate of the two. In fact, it turned out to be that way, as the researcher did more digging. She found a lady descendant of Dinwiddie who told her that her grandmother had put up that later stone around the turn of the century. There was a Dinwiddie or two buried in that other cemetery, and the grandmother thought that one of the graves, which had no marker, was that of Rupert, who was her great-grandfather. She had a marker placed there, and gave the stone carver the wrong information on his death date. Its useful for us to know about these various components which surround grave markers - sometimes the most unusual sorts of knowledge will help solve a puzzle. -B ============================================================