Welcome to the history room

[terryd]

The urine was to fix the dye and also used to wash garments in , Although my memory is be a bit confused.
The Glasgow engine is considered a national treasure although I have had to alter it a wee bit due to the scale Im working at and to make the water jacket was becoming a lifes to short exercise and it may not have had one originally .Lord Kelvin may have had a finger in its addition
Flesh pots in BWH now now lets keep it clean
https://www.gla.ac.uk/hunterian/col...icinstruments/robertstirling'smodelairengine/

Hi,

Urine was used for many things apart from acting as a Mordant to fix and brighten colours, another use was as a source for saltpetre (potassium nitrate) an essential ingredient of gunpowder aka black powder. However niether usine or saltpetre is definitely not explosive by itself it needs the addition of sulphur and powdered charcoal in critical measure to become 'explosive'. Actually gunpowder does not explode it just burns rapidly hence the burning lines of gunpowder seen in many 'Westerns', in order to cause an explosion it needs to be in a strong container. for the latter purpose it was moistly animal urine that was used but bat guano also contains quite a lot as well and this was mined from their caves.

Urine was also used as a cleaning agent as it contains ammonia and this will remove grease and dirt, apparently the ancient Greeks encouraged it's use as a tooth whitener.

 

[goldstar31]

Hi Ken

I somehow doubt that the average Freemason will have the first clue about tools in Ancient Egypt
However, I have my normal drinking date with a Grand Lodge Office in the UGLE( I'm only a Provincial one) but he is also a member of a research Lodge in the Scottish Constitution.
What you will get from the Ritual concerns the Building of the Temple of Solomon and the traditional two hollow pillars which were cast to hold the Jewish Scriptures. The Ritual really moves to the English Guild System of the Apprentice, the Journeyman or Day paid man and then the Master.

Not much help, I'm afraid. There is however a vast amount of Masonic Research by such people as Knight and Lomas of Bradford University. Their publishings are certainly not secret and quite absorbing. Enjoy them .

I can, however, give you a lead s I actually 'grew up' with a Bronze Age skeleton! He or she came from being unearthed at the sandhills between Greenside and Winlaton. Will A Cocks ( of the Bagpipe Museum in Morpeth) had the slelton and 2 sandstone cists and one smaller one for a child. It's bones would be 'Greenstick' and would be long gone. On Mr Cocks death in St Mary's Terrace Ryton they would have gone to the Blackgates Museum in Newcastle.

The other skeleton and stone cist were in the Hancock Museum in Newcastle and I recall it was put outside complete with a food jar and as it was University Rag Week some wit had added a half consumed glass milk bottle and a half eaten - with teeth marks! Probably the Late and much Loved Dr Christine Wennington Alder( Then Atkinson) had a hand in it. She had a spare skull which my daughter has now. So you have a firm lead but there are no tools. There is also a female mummy on the Hancock.

Going back, there was/is gold roughly on the 3 degree line and copper in Llandudno and tin in Cornwall and Ihave no doubt that it all was exported in Europe anyway. It was an important export and done by boys in Roman Times until the seams went under the Irish Sea. The Cornish tin was, as we know. also subject to flooding.

Of course there is the frozen man who body is was removed from arguably Austria or Italy but is in now in Italy but-- has a metal arrowhead stuck in his back.
I looked at photos of a cist elsewhere in - or near Simonsid, Rothbury where there are cup and ring markings on Garleigh Moor but the cist is not dug out like the ones of my youth.

About as far as I can go but- further North in College Valley in Cheviot( with crashed B-17) it is Druidical at=rea.

Hope you have enjoyed a it though a bit- oh damn, the Egyptians also trepanned heads like my daughtr's on in a Jacobs Cream Cracker box.

 

[terryd]

So what about a bit of blood and snots, a bit of mysticism and SEX?????
Well, at the mouth of the River came the Vikings bent on rape, theft and pillage seeking out what was left of the village virgins that were left after the local lads had got tanked up on mthe Local Lindisfarne Mead on Holy Island supervised by the local dignitary, The Venerable Bed e who is allege d to. have brought Christianity to the populace and actually founded a monastery not far up river from the mouth of the Tyne.

At the other end( well the tidal end) lived none other than George Stephenson later to be copied and copied as designer and builder of the Rocket. Not at the time that the. Viking came but they had blue eyes wheras the locals were little, darkish skinnedand black hair. Funny my Mum was little, etc etc but bDad and I are'were tall and-- blue eyedNothing that anyon can do about it but there.
When dear Old The Vereal Bede popped his cloggs and headed off to imortality- or immorality the local goodies carted his body past where the local Laidly or Lambton Worm or serpent lived until it was finally cut up into 3 halves by the local big shot who had come back from the Crusades. Returning back to the script, Bede was intered in the Durham Cathedral which was built by--- the Normans(we get around).

So after all these hundreds of years it is claimed that Bede's Body has never rotted. No one has checked but why spol the script.So somewhere( waving of flags, honking of car horns and the clattering of horses hooves and enter 'the wife's lot' Who had Alice in Wonderland and the the Queen's Mother.
So they built a castle which true to a good story- fell down. So I got nothing apart from a wonderful bride!
Whilst all that was going on- Robert Stephenson- George's Bonny Lad was building railway sand bridges for people to walk or ride across and above railways would run. One is still there, the Germans had a pot shot at it- but it is still there. What is next is a rather charming Swing Bridge which allows BIG ships to pass. They pulled up the remains of the Roman wooden piles where their bbridge stood. Made nice picture frames- but I digress. But a son ofa ca John Dobson used walk from home across it to a huge warehouse which cotray to belief held Tyneside's largest export. No oy coal but-----Human urine.
This day- it went off Bang and the bang was so lous it could be heard in British West T+Hartlepool whose only( ?) claim to fame is hanging a French monkey as a spy although he was only a cabin boy. Any how John Dobson's son could only be identified - by his house. keys.
My late wife? no- another day. Then came urbinia making rings around Queen's Vostoria;s Great British Fleet and my story of Nelly's Moss Lakes and electricity generating and then the first light bulbs and my connection with being violently sick over his granddaughter in law on one of those return of the Latter Day Vikings back to Norway.

Hstory is fun but never the way that they taught me

Norman

Hi,

The Venerable Bede was a monk scholar born somewhere between Jarrow and Sunderland - it is rumoured that he was born in Monkton south of Jarrow but as the first reference to that village is in the 11th Century when land was given as a gift to the monks who were restoring the monastery at Jarrow I'm not so sure. He was sent at around the age of seven to the already established monastery at Wearmouth, Sunderland in his early life to be educated by Benedict Biscop a monk who had established the monastery. Bede became a monk and wrote and taught younger novice oblates in the monastery. He later transferred to the new monastery at Jarrow founded by Ceolfrith. During his 61 or so years he mostly translated works and wrote commentaries on existing religious texts as well as explaining difficult Christian texts (exegeses). His best known work is 'The Ecclesiastical History of the English People'. This latter text is the reason he is considered as the father of British historical writing by some.

Christianity was well established in the British Isles by the time of Bede, he certainly didn't introduce it or spread it or found a monastery. There is evidence of Christian churches in England in the first Century AD and despite some intolerance and persecution in Romano Britain the Christian practices survived until Constantine the Great (Roman Emperor 306 - 337) introduced Christianity as the official religion across the whole of the Roman Empire and many churches were built at that time in Britain.

The Anglo Saxons re-introduced paganism after their invasion of England and destroyed many churches here evidence ot their religion is especially noticeable in the old kingdom of Mercia (the Midlands) in town names such as Wednesbury (Wodens Borough or town) and the famous tool making company Woden - Woden is the Anglo Saxon spelling of Odin their chief god, the head honcho. Celtic Christianity continued in Scotland , Ireland, western Wales and Northumbria, as it did in most native communities in Britain, especially the North. It was the Northumbrian Monk (St) Cuthbert who became Bishop of Lindifarne Abbey and was famed for spreading Christianity back into Northumbria , He died in 687 when Bede was about 12 years old having retired from the church about the same time that Bede was born (he became more or less a hermit). Cuthbert was trained in the Celtic traditions of the religion but supported the change to the Roman tradition of the Church.

I'm not religious by the way just fascinated by British history of which Christianity played such a huge part in the last millenium.

TerryD

 

[Steamchick]

Ouch! Unfortunately it is the wrong question- I have no idea of who garrisoned the roman Wall then although I have heard that it was the 'Arbs' and also the French. Again, there is mention of the 9th Legion. I simply too old, now without transport, down to a disability scooter and almost blind with macular degeneration.
What I can tell you is that the Roman fort of Caeer Ursa Caer Ursa is NOT on the Roman Wall. It is separated as the later folk son 'Water of Tyne' as 'I cannot get to my truelove if I would die as the eaters of Tyne run between THee and me'
South shields site if the fort are only yard between North Shields but a journey of some 80 kilometres between the two- with the Roman Wall on the North side- to the nearest bridging point of Newcastle upon Tyne- now and then. The nearest brisge to the sea was the replica of the Sydney Harbour bridge, the Swing Brisge( built over the Roman bog oak wooden piles and the High level Bridge which was designed and built by the son of the early railway pioneer of Rocket fame- George Stephenson. He, incidentally was born in a cottage at the extreme end of the tidal part of the Tyne. You CAN navigate around the bridge on thee Spring tides w hich ironically happen once a Lunar Month. I've done it!
So knowing the size of a Roman galley having done a first on what was probably St Paul's or Saul of Tarsis- isn't that big.
Complicated isn't it?

But then the Roman or Hadrian's Walis- of 72 miles n't the furthest North into what is now Northumberland and still in England but there is a Turf wall in Scotland much further North.

Thanks Norman, Interesting. I'm surprised you have an 80km trip to get around the Tyne... Are you going to Corbridge where the Roman road can ford the river? The fort at South Shields was mostly a granary, using the original Tyne Dock to ship the grain up river and to the garrisons on Hadrian's wall. Well worth a visit now! A good starting point for anyone visiting Hadrian's wall - which has many worthy sites.
Robert Stevenson not only built the high level railway and road bridge over the Tyne, he built the box bridge over the Menai Straits (destroyed by fire) - and similarly across the St. Lawrence river to take the railway into the centre of Montreal (on an island). My ancestors lived near George Stevenson (Wylam) when he grew up, worked for him in North Shields, and were Engine men in many pits, and later became Engine drivers on locomotives on the Stockton and Darlington railway. Later they went with Robert down to London when he built that railway from Newcastle, and onwards from London to Liverpool and Holyhead... So my family was "scattered by the railway expansions of the Stevensons". My sister recently met a Canadian member..... We can't get the oil and swarf out of our genes... But my family aside, Robert Stevenson's High Level Bridge is a fantastic and durable piece of engineering from the earliest railways and still carrying traffic today...
K2

 

[Steamchick]

Hi,

Urine was used for many things apart from acting as a Mordant to fix and brighten colours, another use was as a source for saltpetre (potassium nitrate) an essential ingredient of gunpowder aka black powder. However niether usine or saltpetre is definitely not explosive by itself it needs the addition of sulphur and powdered charcoal in critical measure to become 'explosive'. Actually gunpowder does not explode it just burns rapidly hence the burning lines of gunpowder seen in many 'Westerns', in order to cause an explosion it needs to be in a strong container. for the latter purpose it was moistly animal urine that was used but bat guano also contains quite a lot as well and this was mined from their caves.

Urine was also used as a cleaning agent as it contains ammonia and this will remove grease and dirt, apparently the ancient Greeks encouraged it's use as a tooth whitener.

Years ago I read that Blacksmiths would feed a donkey on turnips (Swedes, Wurzels or Neeps) and collect the urine - to use for quenching blades (for ploughs, chisels, knives or swords) when case hardening and tempering. The suggestion is that the water mostly boiled-off but the nitrates in Urine gave a slight Nitriding to the (forged) steel. Hence a better, keener, more durable edge.
I think Urine - if kept for months - turns into "Lye" as it decays, which was the common "Flash" liquid for cleaning until the 20th c. - Used for all de-greasing and washing clothes. Using fresh pee made your clothes stink of pee - if you could smell it over the pong of "unwashed human" and "bad breath"! But it killed the fleas, lice, etc., if not their eggs. Hot water (over 60C) did the "medical" cleaning of clothes, but was expensive for fuel..
Because of the trade in dying thread for colouring clothes, when Alum was developed as a mordant, the urine from London was bought and shipped in barrels to North Yorkshire (Robin Hoods bay) to be used in processing the alum. Was this Yorkshire "taking the P!ss out of London"? - A good trade for colliers returning for coal from the Durham coalfields.

K2

 

[terryd]

Hi Ken

...Going back, there was/is gold roughly on the 3 degree line and copper in Llandudno and tin in Cornwall and Ihave no doubt that it all was exported in Europe anyway. It was an important export and done by boys in Roman Times until the seams went under the Irish Sea. The Cornish tin was, as we know. also subject to flooding....

.

Hi Norman,

Gold was not only in Wales, there was quite a lot of gold in Britain - and still is, grains as large as 1 ounce were regularly found in Scottish rivers and gold prospecting was also common in English rivers, especially in Cumbria. The largest nugget found in Scotland was in fact in 2019 when one was found weighing over 120 grams by an amateur prospector. Of course you know that the Queen's wedding ring is made from Welsh gold.

There were also a lot of copper mines all over Britain- especially Wales and Cornish tin was used extensively to make bronze for weapons, tools and jewellery in Bronze Age Britain, it wasn't all exported by Bronze Age Capitalists.

TerryD

 

[Steamchick]

More P folklaw?
Using the pee barrel for washing may sound daft, but... At sea, sailors only had enough fresh water for drinking... topped-up by rain. So to wash (which they didn't do) their clothes (which they did - to reduce lice, fleas etc.) they used the pee barrel. Yes, it contained lye, the decomposed ammonia solution from urine, and din't ruin the skin as washing in salty sea-water would do. But ships had a peculiar smell as a result. Hence the land-lubbers term for sailors as "fish-heads". But the Army - at war - would be far worse off. They usually could find fresh water - which didn't wash clothes very well, nor kill the lice, etc, - so had plenty to drink - when they couldn't find a village with an inn to drink dry! So not being able to carry barrels of pee (lye) they didn't wash clothes, nor bodies, so "you could smell the army before it arrived and well after it had gone"... Hence the Naval term for the Army as "pongos" - as in "Where the Army goes, the pong-goes".
I was only taught that you could smell the RAF by the expensive cologne they would wear... (According to my Mother and her cronies!). But that was in a more modern time.
And on Nitriding?
Someone told me that instead of using sugar, Kasenite, or other source of Carbon (such as wrapped leather strips cut from old boots - as I had to do as an apprentice) to harden tools, if you use "high Nitrogen fertiliser powder", or "Ajax" powder, you will Nitride the steel and it will "take a better edge".... ?? - Better than quenching in Pee! Anyone any knowledge on that one? May be a way of hardening steel Piston Rings? (Steel can make a slimmer piston ring than cast iron, but needs to be barrel-linished in a dummy cylinder as it won't run-in as quickly in an engine as the cast iron ring). - Any ideas?
K2

 

[terryd]

Years ago I read that Blacksmiths would feed a donkey on turnips (Swedes, Wurzels or Neeps) and collect the urine - to use for quenching blades (for ploughs, chisels, knives or swords) when case hardening and tempering. The suggestion is that the water mostly boiled-off but the nitrates in Urine gave a slight Nitriding to the (forged) steel. Hence a better, keener, more durable edge.
I think Urine - if kept for months - turns into "Lye" as it decays, which was the common "Flash" liquid for cleaning until the 20th c. - Used for all de-greasing and washing clothes. Using fresh pee made your clothes stink of pee - if you could smell it over the pong of "unwashed human" and "bad breath"! But it killed the fleas, lice, etc., if not their eggs. Hot water (over 60C) did the "medical" cleaning of clothes, but was expensive for fuel..
Because of the trade in dying thread for colouring clothes, when Alum was developed as a mordant, the urine from London was bought and shipped in barrels to North Yorkshire (Robin Hoods bay) to be used in processing the alum. Was this Yorkshire "taking the P!ss out of London"? - A good trade for colliers returning for coal from the Durham coalfields.

K2

Hi Steamchick,

I'm not sure if it turns into 'Lye' which is caustic soda (sodium hydrixide a very dangerous chemical) but the ammonia would be released as the water evaporates and of course ammonia is used as a cleaning fluid as being alkaline it dissolves grease.

Regarding body odours, there are now scientists who believe that body odours are actually caused by washing and that 'the great unwashed' didn't actually smell that bad or in fact very dirty, unless involved in manual work of course. The reason for the theory, which I first read about in the late 1960s, relies on the fact that there are several types of bacteria living on the skin. One particulat type feeds on sweat and it is their excretions that smell bad. However, so the theory goes, when washing those excretions off you also wash of 'good' bacteria which naturally counteract the effects of teh 'bad' bacteria, so washing actually encourages the production of bad smells which then have to be washed off in a never ending cycle. As for bad breath, that is mostly caused by dental problems which are mostly the result of the excess of refined sugar we eat and that didn't appear until the early Georgian period, and the demands for the new sweetener led to the slave trade to provide the labour for the plantations... and so life goes on!

TerryD

 

[goldstar31]

Hi Norman,

Gold was not only in Wales, there was quite a lot of gold in Britain - and still is, grains as large as 1 ounce were regularly found in Scottish rivers and gold prospecting was also common in English rivers, especially in Cumbria. The largest nugget found in Scotland was in fact in 2019 when one was found weighing over 120 grams by an amateur prospector. Of course you know that the Queen's wedding ring is made from Welsh gold.

There were also a lot of copper mines all over Britain- especially Wales and Cornish tin was used extensively to make bronze for weapons, tools and jewellery in Bronze Age Britain, it wasn't all exported by Bronze Age Capitalists.

TerryD

Terrry

I was quoting the 3 degree line because e it runs through Cornwall, into North Wales into Aryll, through the Highlands and across the Black Isle above Inverness and so on.
Ron Carpenter was on the British Gold Panning team and wrote an excellent little book. We had next door time shares i n Dalfaber, Aviemore where I finally bought a bhutt and bein.
However Ron mentioned that gold was found under va hospital in Auld Reekie, Edinburgh. I always thought that the St Claairs( Sinclairs) had 'something else at Roslin Chapel--- shades og the Knights Templar and Kilwinning. Oddly, I 've just taken a call from Kilbarchan, Paisley. My old mate has got grand Lodge!
Of course I have a connection the vScottish side of things on the Argyll and theIslands side of things. But for Countess Cromarty, we'd be living up there.

 

[terryd]

Hi Steamchick,

I'm not sure if it turns into 'Lye' which is caustic soda (sodium hydrixide a very dangerous chemical) but the ammonia would be released as the water evaporates and of course ammonia is used as a cleaning fluid as being alkaline it dissolves grease.

Regarding body odours, there are now scientists who believe that body odours are actually caused by washing and that 'the great unwashed' didn't actually smell that bad or in fact very dirty, unless involved in manual work of course. The reason for the theory, which I first read about in the late 1960s, relies on the fact that there are several types of bacteria living on the skin. One particulat type feeds on sweat and it is their excretions that smell bad. However, so the theory goes, when washing those excretions off you also wash of 'good' bacteria which naturally counteract the effects of teh 'bad' bacteria, so washing actually encourages the production of bad smells which then have to be washed off in a never ending cycle. As for bad breath, that is mostly caused by dental problems which are mostly the result of the excess of refined sugar we eat and that didn't appear until the early Georgian period, and the demands for the new sweetener led to the slave trade to provide the labour for the plantations... and so life goes on!

TerryD

I forgot to mention that as far as not washing goes you shed your outer skin layer (stratum cornea) completely in about 30 days and it is continually being replaced with new skin cells and as this is a continuous action the dirt which is on that outer skin layer is also removed, without washing. People in early cities carried around scented pomanders if you were rich or posies from flower girls if you were poorer in order to hide the smells of human excretions which were often just thrown into the streets relying on rain to wash it into the nearest stream or river.

Once again Steamchick, Lye is caustic soda, i.e. sodium or pottasium hydroxide, not ammonia.

TerryD

 

[goldstar31]

More P folklaw?
Using the pee barrel for washing may sound daft, but... At sea, sailors only had enough fresh water for drinking... topped-up by rain. So to wash (which they didn't do) their clothes (which they did - to reduce lice, fleas etc.) they used the pee barrel. Yes, it contained lye, the decomposed ammonia solution from urine, and din't ruin the skin as washing in salty sea-water would do. But ships had a peculiar smell as a result. Hence the land-lubbers term for sailors as "fish-heads". But the Army - at war - would be far worse off. They usually could find fresh water - which didn't wash clothes very well, nor kill the lice, etc, - so had plenty to drink - when they couldn't find a village with an inn to drink dry! So not being able to carry barrels of pee (lye) they didn't wash clothes, nor bodies, so "you could smell the army before it arrived and well after it had gone"... Hence the Naval term for the Army as "pongos" - as in "Where the Army goes, the pong-goes".
I was only taught that you could smell the RAF by the expensive cologne they would wear... (According to my Mother and her cronies!). But that was in a more modern time.
And on Nitriding?
Someone told me that instead of using sugar, Kasenite, or other source of Carbon (such as wrapped leather strips cut from old boots - as I had to do as an apprentice) to harden tools, if you use "high Nitrogen fertiliser powder", or "Ajax" powder, you will Nitride the steel and it will "take a better edge".... ?? - Better than quenching in Pee! Anyone any knowledge on that one? May be a way of hardening steel Piston Rings? (Steel can make a slimmer piston ring than cast iron, but needs to be barrel-linished in a dummy cylinder as it won't run-in as quickly in an engine as the cast iron ring). - Any ideas?
K2

My father was a blacksmith of the old school. Did his apprenticeship at Consett which is next doot to Shotley Bridge the formwe scene of the German Sword Makers who, it is said made gentlemen's swords that could be wound into a top hat. The swords were beaten out with charcoal and folded and folded like a Swiss Roll. Dad probably 'started' at the age of 12, his father being formerly at Shildon and Timothy Hackwort's railway works -- Sans Pareill and all that. Dad's two brothers were also smoths. Dad used pared horses hooves and tempered with the contents of the pee bucket.
Dad was a farrier too, set fire to a couple of reluctant horses on Anglesy as a under age sapper and was teaching pnteland bridge building across the Menair Straits to the mainland. Enter briefly, the Megalithic Yard a by Professor Thom and the megalithic Yard-- using the Plannet Venus and all described by the two Masons in Bradford Uni.

Back to the man with eye like him, steel and he could re-weld a broken leaf spring as new, could tempper spring steel with charring wood and could soften copper soldering irons so that they could be tinned again and taught me how to the gauge the hetat of an iron by- holding int near my cheek.
My first soldering ironwas 6 old pence at the now long gone Woolworth's. I must have been only 9 as it was pre-war.

I recall him when I was a bare 16 year old being given leave by-another freemason to cisit him in hospital, He's been inside a loco boiler re-tubing by himself and came to grief. Then another day their was the running wire rope under ground and he was cutand cut. I'd come home from the localmflea pit after watching Cronins, the Stars Look Down. Of course I never became an engineer or whatever. Ofcourse I do have a City and Guilds and was a Certified Welder.
My knowledge of Church History is another story but I reckon that there was a tenuous connection with 'Hendon' but not quite because mycousin was a Army Officer/RAF Officer( Named in both lists!) and was with Tito with what was Yugoslavia and the with Churchill at the Yalta Conference.
Hendon was 'More than an ancient aerodrome and Ally Pally ( Alexandra Palace) was more than ]bending the beams of the Luftwaffe.

And there was no way I wanted a Commission based on my cousin and my IQ.

 

[goldstar31]

Thinking of things Ecclesiastical - Prince Bishops of Durham, my father was at a coal mine and the diggings broke through into an old workplace with candles and sandals and was later claimed to hav e been The Monks of Kepier- part of Durham and some 16 miles or so from the monk's hospital.
OK it was a drift mine but it begs the question of 'why'?
OK the R iv er Tyne at that point was only two or so miles away. The Tyne was navigable as far as the kissing Stone and on a Spring tide a bit further. Anyone hazard a guess, please?
I know about the other. Dyke that complements the Roman Dyke and the Great Whin sill Dyle that takes part of the Hadrian's Roman Wall and which stretches to appear at Coqurt Island and thence to the Farbe Island a chain off 7 miles out to sea( Grace Farling etc) and then seems to end at the Holy Island of St Cuthbert of Lindisafar. And back to Nort Sunderland and North Sunderland- not Sunderland.
Dunstanburgh of St Dunstan and the Lordly Strand which is Northumberland- and Bamburgh Castle!
Splendid views of Muckle Cheviot.

I cannot believe faxing the 7 knot tide race between the islands in a folding canoe nor can I imagine that I used to ski the wet heather down Cheviot to Sir Walter Scott wrote 'Marmion'.

 

[goldstar31]

So my two children and their four can trace their lineage to 1610. Not me- my late wife's lot.
Any more with an earlier date? Guessing, that was the time of the Death of Queen Elizabeth- dfrom lead poisoning and James the 1st of England and the 6th Of Scotland writing 'A Counterblast against Smoking'

Reminds me of that music hall performer who was called Nosmo King!

Lye incidentally is usually wood ash and then we come on to the saponification of fatty acids---Soap

 

[terryd]

Terrry

I was quoting the 3 degree line because e it runs through Cornwall, into North Wales into Aryll, through the Highlands and across the Black Isle above Inverness and so on.
Ron Carpenter was on the British Gold Panning team and wrote an excellent little book. We had next door time shares i n Dalfaber, Aviemore where I finally bought a bhutt and bein.
However Ron mentioned that gold was found under va hospital in Auld Reekie, Edinburgh. I always thought that the St Claairs( Sinclairs) had 'something else at Roslin Chapel--- shades og the Knights Templar and Kilwinning. Oddly, I 've just taken a call from Kilbarchan, Paisley. My old mate has got grand Lodge!
Of course I have a connection the vScottish side of things on the Argyll and theIslands side of things. But for Countess Cromarty, we'd be living up there.

Hi Norman,

I understand your comment on the 3° line but there are also significant gold deposits between 2° and 4° at least, covering a huge area but it's good to realise that the 3° line is so important as my property in N Brittany is on that line almost exactly and as the geology is so similar to Devon and Cornwall perhaps I should start panning the local streams and rivers! Maybe I should look to an engineering solution to automate the process

Regards and stay safe

TerryD

 

[goldstar31]

Hi Terry

I've actually seen the result of a day's panning 'somewhere North of The Black Isle' and really, my wife was far from impressed. Here yield of gold from extracted patients teeth was far in excess of Ron Carpenter's day standing in ice cold water. Mind you, my dear wife made up a paraffin wax casting for a little neck ingot, had it melted and centrifugally cast( all the clever stuff)-- and it wouldn't assay!

It contained fairly large amounts of platinum. Christine had always planned to have her own teeth knocked out after her death. Her senior dental officer ws deputed for the task but things were so sudden- and it never happened. As Rabbi Burns was oft to quote 'The best laid schemes of mice and men gan aft a- glay. Which makes me think that he lived in Gold Country

Take care
Cheers

N

 

[terryd]

So my two children and their four can trace their lineage to 1610. Not me- my late wife's lot.
Any more with an earlier date? Guessing, that was the time of the Death of Queen Elizabeth- dfrom lead poisoning and James the 1st of England and the 6th Of Scotland writing 'A Counterblast against Smoking'

Reminds me of that music hall performer who was called Nosmo King!

Lye incidentally is usually wood ash and then we come on to the saponification of fatty acids---Soap

Hi Norman,

re Lye - It's not actually wood ash per se, but sodium hydroxide (lye - aka caustic soda) can be leached from wood ash but that's rare these days and it is now made by other processes industrially. Caustic soda only reacts with lipids when dissolved in water when it becomes aggresive and dangerous so it's pellets can be handled quite safely in dry conditions. My wife used to work for a large chemicals company who dealt with huge quantities of the stuff and I usd to get free 'samples' which I used, with safety precautiions for removing hardened grease and paint from tools and equipmentwhen refurbishing them, now I have to buy it . however It's much cheaper though than proprietary paint removers and at least cleans the greases from the drains.

As you suggest it is used in soap making but so is potassium hydroxide which makes a much softer soap including the (very) soft soap which, given your age (and mine) you will know of amongst other things as a lubricant for thread cutting in larger sizes, as was tallow. We also used soft soap with the addition of an abrasive such as sand or salt grains as a substitute for Swarfega. When I was experimenting with used cooking oil, turning it into bio fuel for my generator I also used caustic soda to make 'craft' soaps from any excess vegetable oil.

Caustic soda (lye) is also much used by organised crime such as the Mafia for disposing of bodies turning them, into soap

Regards and stay safe,

TerryD

 

[goldstar31]

Hi Tery
Thanks for the 'lyes, lyes, and damned statistics. We used to use 'Cows Dick' to remove paint and varnishes . And yes, you can get rid of mother's in law!
And then clean the drains afterwards. The mind boggles!
Again, all this soft soap about used cooking oil. Clears throat, I have Chinese connections. In fact, I have been in a sort of lockdown since the Chinese New Year. I am always invited to the Chinese Old Age Pensioner's New Year Lunch. Clears throat, more Anon- or perhaps not!
Best Wishes

Norman

 

[Steamchick]

Sorry I got it wrong with "Lye" .. didn't manage much with chemistry. But I regularly use Caustic soda to de-grease the drains... - It turns into common salt I think? - And the Hydrocarbons in the grease decay into Carbon dioxide and water - possibly? Don't ask me how.
I did hear once that Undertakers were so rich because they removed all the gold from teeth of cadavers. (For cremations someone has to remove all metal items! Fillings, rings, jewellery - I wonder if they removed all the bone implant splints from Barry Sheen and Evel Knievel? And the Undertakers don't want the furnace lads getting rich instead!).
K2

 

[terryd]

So my two children and their four can trace their lineage to 1610. Not me- my late wife's lot.
Any more with an earlier date? Guessing, that was the time of the Death of Queen Elizabeth- dfrom lead poisoning and James the 1st of England and the 6th Of Scotland writing 'A Counterblast against Smoking'

Reminds me of that music hall performer who was called Nosmo King!

Lye incidentally is usually wood ash and then we come on to the saponification of fatty acids---Soap

Hi Norman,

Your mention of James 1 of England reminded me that it was he who offered a sustantial prize for anyone who could successfully smaelt iron without using charcoal as there was an environmental problem in that too many trees were being used to make the charcoal for the ironmakers at the time. The only person who was successful was the chap I mentioned in an earlier posting, Dud Dudley (1600 - 1684). Dud was an illegitimate son of the Earl of Dudley who was brought back from Balliol college, Oxford to run the ironworks and mines for his father on Pensnett Chase near Dudley itself. In fact according to contemporary commentators nearly all of the trees from the woods on the chase had been cut down for charcoal. Dud eventually succeded but it took him quite a while to get his rewards and in the meantime he suffered troubles from the Great Mayday Flood of 1625 which destroyed his first blast furnace In Cradley near to where Rastrick built the 'Stourbridge Lion' - the first steam locomotive in the USA and traditional ironmakers and charcoal producers who disparaged his product and destroyed one furnace and then destroyed the bellows at his next one - early Luddite before Ned Ludd?

The ironworks of the Earl actually lasted well into the 20th Century eventually becoming part of British Steel as the Round Oak Steelworks in Brierly Hill which was closed down in the 1980s government attacks on heavy industry in the UK, was around 3 miles from my family home and was 2still known locally as 'the Earl of Dudley's'

Abraham Darby (b. 1678 aka the father of the industrial revolution), who was born and lived about 1/2 mile from my family's village in the Parish of Sedgley near Dudley, was descended from Dud's sister, another illegitimate child of the Earl. He of course moved to Bristol as a brass founder and then to Coalbrookedale Shropshire where he build his blast furnace at Blists Hill and where the famous Iron Bridge was built. Darby is thought of as the first to smelt iron using coke but he would have known of his granduncle Dud's achievements who had built a coke fired blast furnace in Dudley.

The history of the Sutton Family (Earls of Dudley) is also fascinating and as an aside Dud's father Edward Sutton was the last Baron, Earl of Dudley, as his bad management, poor decisions and rather degenerate lifestyle (his mistress bore him at least 11 children in addition to the 4 with his wife) lost the family fortunes

The Black Country of which Dudley is the centre had a seam of coal running beneath which was up to 30 feet thick and close to the surface - the soil is black due to the coal dust and marl clay which possibly gave the name to the area, there were also rich seams of ironstone and the geology of the area around Dudley and Sedgley is limestone, the place where Darby was born is known as 'the Wren's Nest which was a limestone quarry (now an SSI and is famed for it's geology and rich source of fossils) having the 'Seven Sisters' caverns and a huge chamber hollowed out known as 'The Cathedral'. The limestone was carried to an underground canal basin linked to the workings on the canal which ran underneath Dudley Castle hill. The canal is now part of the 'Black Country Living Museum' where much of the 'Peaky Blinders' TV series is filmed. All of these minerals and facilities together meant that the area was perfect for smelting iron using coke.

The scale of the cavern can be appreciated by reference to the miner to the left of centre in the picture The Seven Sisters were the huge pillars left to support the roof and the huge cavern is known locally as the Cathedral.

https://www.dudley.gov.uk/things-to...eology-of-wrens-nest-national-nature-reserve/
Ain't history fascinating?

Regards Stay safe,

TerryD

 

[terryd]

Hi Terry

I've actually seen the result of a day's panning 'somewhere North of The Black Isle' and really, my wife was far from impressed. Here yield of gold from extracted patients teeth was far in excess of Ron Carpenter's day standing in ice cold water. Mind you, my dear wife made up a paraffin wax casting for a little neck ingot, had it melted and centrifugally cast( all the clever stuff)-- and it wouldn't assay!

It contained fairly large amounts of platinum. Christine had always planned to have her own teeth knocked out after her death. Her senior dental officer ws deputed for the task but things were so sudden- and it never happened. As Rabbi Burns was oft to quote 'The best laid schemes of mice and men gan aft a- glay. Which makes me think that he lived in Gold Country

Take care
Cheers

N

Hi Norman,

But we can all try panning for gold but not act as dentists. I did a lot of of centrifugal casting when I did my 2 year jewellery and silversmithing course at Loughborough Universithy College in the early 1970s we made outr patterns from casting wax which is harder than parafin wax with a higher melting point so that it can be handled more easily and much finer detail produced, beeswax was traditionally used and of course is still available . Great fun it was too.

You can always seperate gold from platinum easily given the large difference in melting points - gold about 1000°C and platinum about 1800°C if I remember well and the largest nugget found in the UK at 3.9 oz (121.3 gm) would fill a lot of teeth.

Regards and stay safe,

TerryD