Minecraft wiki entry for The_second_day, associated text: As you've seen, mining gray ("plain") stone, drops a mottled block called cobblestone. This differs from stone only in appearance and what you can craft with it. Stone is so plentiful, that you may find yourself making chests just to store your accumulated cobblestone. However, don't throw it away, as stone is a key building material. Stone is not flammable, and has high blast resistance: If a creeper explodes right next to your stone wall, it may break a few blocks, but not much more than that. For your early houses, you should be making most of the walls out of stone.