Stone

Stone is a type of block introduced very early in the game. It has a texture put on all 6 sides of the block. Rock makes up a very large portion of a normally generated map. Under the dirt layer, the stone layer extends all the way to the bottom of the map (And in Creative mode, to the edges). In the stone layer of the map, Caverns, Ore and Dungeons (Alpha only) can be found.

Stone can be used in Creative mode. It is often used for making roads, paths and to make walls of stone for dungeons or tunnels.

In Alpha mode, stone is a valuable resource. If mined with a pickaxe, it will drop Cobblestone. Making a "staircase mine" is a great way to get lots of Cobblestone as well as find ore. A staircase mine is simply a staircase made going underground and continues until it hits the bottom of the map. From there, it can be made to tunnel along the bottom of the map to find more rarer resources like diamond and Redstone. Cobblestone can be smelted into normal Stone again.

Normal Stone can be crafted into Stone Pressure Plates which can only be activated by dropping something on them, and into Stone Buttons which are activated by clicking on them.

Trivia

 * In very early Minecraft footage, Stone had a Cobblestone texture.
 * Stone has the largest amount of blocks in a normal map.