RICHMOND, Va ?EUR??,,????'??? Red Hogan Enterprises of Tampa, Fla., recently completed the sale and supervised the installation of one of the world?EUR??,,????'???s largest floating granite sculpture, a globe representing the Earth. The 29-ton ball, called a Kugel (the German word for ball), was set in place Jan. 7 in front of the Science Museum of Virginia in Richmond, where it will be featured as an interactive educational tool, as well as a distinctive landmark for the highly visible institution. The Kugel is comprised of a sphere of solid granite 8 feet, 8-5/16 inches in diameter and weighing 57,991 pounds. A portion of it rests in a base stone carved to the precise contour of the ball. Water, at a mere 33.81 pounds per square inch (psi), is pumped up from beneath the base and sets the Kugel on a slow spin, which will continue as long as the water is running. Despite its mass and size, the direction of the ball?EUR??,,????'???s spin can be easily changed by even a light touch. Christened the ?EUR??,,????'??Grand Kugel?EUR??,,????'?? by museum officials, the sphere is engraved with the map of the Earth and is engineered to rotate along the same axis as the Earth?EUR??,,????'???s rotation ?EUR??,,????'??+ 23.4 degrees, with its North Pole pointing to the North Star. The sphere was quarried in South Africa into a 9-foot-square block of clear black Bon Accord Dark granite weighing 81 tons. It was shipped in October 2001 to the German manufacturer, where it took more than a year to be honed to a near-perfect, polished and engraved object. ?EUR??,,????'??The globe of the earth is far more than we expected,?EUR??,,????'?? says Walter Witschey, Ph.D., director of the Science Museum of Virginia. ?EUR??,,????'??Its scale, its grandeur, and its elegance of design are mesmerizing. Our visitors are hypnotized as they stand, stare and sense their world at an unusual scale. For this globe, that visitors can move with one hand, Everest is 1/16 inch high, and our fragile atmosphere would be only 1/4 inch thick.?EUR??,,????'?? The base stone of Tarn granite from France was crafted to echo the capitals on the Museum?EUR??,,????'???s columns. The Science Museum occupies Richmond?EUR??,,????'???s former railroad hub, the Broad Street Station. It was designed by architect John Russell Pope, whose works include the Jefferson Memorial and National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. With a combined weight of 101,000 pounds, the Grand Kugel sphere, base and equipment were delivered to Portsmouth, Va., by ship, then to the museum job site by a heavy-duty Lowboy trailer that required special permitting to travel Virginia roads. Two giant cranes lifted the granite globe and base from the truck and set them - perfectly level - in place.