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Subject:
From:
George Myers <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 25 Aug 1999 21:28:25 -0400
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In a message dated 08/24/99 4:14:38 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<< Subj:     Re: marking pig iron
 Date:  08/24/99 4:14:38 AM Eastern Daylight Time
 From:  [log in to unmask]
 Sender:    [log in to unmask]
 Reply-to:  <A HREF="mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]</A>
 To:    [log in to unmask] (Multiple recipients of list)

 >JH Brothers IV wrote

 >>But, what does this have to do about markings on pig iron?

 I was refreshing my memory, and now I've found out that the two "pigs" we
did
 find at the West Point Foundry, on the East side of the Hudson in Cold
 Spring, NY, were left in a trailer on site, so if I wanted to research them
I
 can't unless my colleague is wrong about their disposition. I apologize
about
 not having the citation of Glassey's work, it's from memory. By "trick" I
 meant in the coyote sense, we were once to vault all artifacts from this
 "contamination" (Mary Douglas' book, "Purity and Danger" comes to mind, an
 excellent anthropological examination, recommended. a Penguin if I remember)
 and eventually they allowed limited processing off site by the "newer"
 guidelines for artifacts, therefore secondary became the possibility of the
 historic contaminations not considered, the present, if you will taking
 precedence over the past, including "health and safety" plans that are
 targeted at specific modern mishaps not hypothetical historical ones.

 This particular foundry produced over 1 million shells, built the "Swamp
 Angel," 30,000 carriages for guns and invented the "Parrot Rifle," the first
 successfully mass-produced rifled cannon, with double the range of smooth
 bore. It went on in the production of nonmilitary objects while covertly
 developing things such as the "dynamite gun" similar to the one captured
from
 Saddam Hussein, and other ordnance (incendiary, etc.) all apparently still
 classified because of the proximity across the river to West Point Military
 Academy, NY. Having personally encountered large empty ordnance, like the
 type demonstrated for President Lincoln, was quite an experience, though not
 equal to the enthusiasm Jules Verne found on his visit there, ("First Men In
 the Moon,") 200lb and 300lb shells were developed, and spun out of heavy
 rifled cannons at the mountains across the Hudson, in places that recently
 have been afire from lightning and drought.

 Specifically, I would like to see all ordnance out of the county of Israel
 Putnam's veterans and recent events stir up the exasperation a modern
 remediation that refused to research the past adequately in my estimation.
My
 "Machinist's Catechism" states one can strengthen iron by dipping in
 antimony, a very poisonous element not even considered in the urine tests of
 my fellow workers.

 The Society of Industrial Archaeology has a brochure for a tour of the
 Birmingham, Alabama foundries, with a "pig" on the cover with "SIA" imbedded
 in it they are having a tour and for $100 dollars you can cast anything you
 want up to 30 lb. The tour looks excellent for anyone interested:

 IA in Dixie
 Society For Industrial Archeology
 Southern Chapter
 Birmingham, Alabama
 FALL TOUR '99 October 30-November 7, 1999
 Hardhats and Safety Glasses required.

 Bode Morin at (205) [log in to unmask] or Jack Bergstresser at (205) 934
 4690/ [log in to unmask]

 I was once there on a Sunday at the Art Museum, one of the few places I've
 ever seen Jomon pottery on exhibit, in regard to the other post about the
 "aborigine." Wonderful place, with Andy Warhol's "Double Jackie," but sadly
 empty the day I was there.
 >>



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