Natural glass from hay 

by Bill Baird

Two large stacks of baled hay, some 15 feet apart, on a property in the Parish of Gnarkeet, near Lismore, Western Victoria were burnt to the ground on the 7th of March of 1961. The 325 tons of hay were mowed and stacked during a relatively hot dry period and contained only the normal grassland plants associated with meadow hay. The soil underlying the fields from which the hay was taken had a basaltic origin. Examination of the fire site revealed that 325 tons of hay had been converted into approximately 16 tons of silica glass. The reasons for the production of this "natural glass" are discussed by George Baker and Alfred A. Baker in Hay-Silica Glass from Gnarkeet, Western Victoria, Memoirs of the National Museum, Melbourne, Australia, 1963, No. 26, pp.21-45.