In a message dated 4/29/2006 7:11:34 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
basically using the technology of casting I think in
the ground around a mold, as used in cannon production, to make
cylindrical posts for the building of multi-floor buildings in NYC and
elsewhere. They looked sort of like steel pipe with end joins
George Myers raised an interesting point on technology that has puzzled me
for a number of years. The 1904 vintage Colonial Revival barracks at U.S. Army
Fort Rosecrans present rows of steel posts on the wrap around porches. During
renovation in 1998, I monitored and photographed the interior as drywall and
other inappropriate materials were removed from inside the walls and we
found the entire three-story structure stood on those cast iron posts. To support
modern elevators and other technical equipment, some of those posts were
removed and replaced by modern structural steel. The California State Historic
Preservation Office required preservation of the removed posts and we
relocated them to a Sea Bees storage area in a 1915 vintage mortar battery uphill. I
had an opportunity to examine those posts closely and noted the interior was
rough cast metal. Now I see the kind of casting technology described by
George could have created those posts. At the time, I treated the monitoring,
documenting, and storage of structural parts just like an archaeological study
and filed a report with the U.S. Navy.
Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.
After the Civil War, they made cast iron building columns at the West
Point Foundry, basically using the technology of casting I think in
the ground around a mold, as used in cannon production, to make
cylindrical posts for the building of multi-floor buildings in NYC and
elsewhere. They looked sort of like steel pipe with end joins. A small
locomotive (the West Point Foundry built the first locomotive in the
US for Georgia timber trade, and also sugar boilers, one still in
Puerto Rico, and other machinery) that used to run on NYC elevated
railroad (before they were electrified) fell to the street in a
elevated structure fire and was bought and used in the West Point
Foundry in Cold Spring, NY. As part of the cast-iron building
construction it was probably important in architectural history.
On the side, someone thought of joining these "tubes" together and
since Nobel had invented dynamite, using them as an experimental gun
after the Civil War. The so-called "dynamite gun" was put on a barge
in the Hudson River and fired a wooden projectile up river 2 1/2 (?)
miles perhaps ushering in a new way for humanity to kill. A similar
weapon was reputed to have been invented in the state of Vermont back
in the early 1990's where it was tested. It's inventor was perhaps
assassinated on the streets of Amsterdam, Holland ("Time" magazine)
while we were working in the archaeology of the Foundry Cove and
so-called "Workers Houses". Various claims have been in the press
about it's interception on the way to Libya and Iraq almost a
barometer of belligerence. There are other later weapons in
stereo-pair photos, along with the "dynamite gun" in the West Point
Foundry Schoolhouse Museum that may or may not have been connected
with succeeding manufacturers on the site.
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