When I was a kid, I'm 73 now, we had a fishing/swimming spot near a bridge over a boggy creek. I remember seeing an oily looking film and rusty coloured mud in a seep beside the creek. I thought maybe there was a Model T ran off the road into the creek. Now I'm thinking bog iron.
I have seen it to in my childhood Denmark. I was living next to a small lake and we also had the problem that our water well's eventually turned full of red stuff. The water became undrinkable.
I find it in coastal swampy areas in oregon, I allways thought it was contamination of some sort although it was in unlikely areas for that.. pretty cool now!
I live in the Anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania. There are numerous areas where acid mine drainage pools and produces this oily effect. I've also seen it in swampy areas that aren't near mine works and I intuitively made a connection but today is the first time I am learning about bog iron. Now I'm wondering if these mine drainage areas would be a good source of ore for blacksmithing.🤷♂️ Time to do some research and experiments!🎉
Hm, In the Netherlands, there used to be a fairly well-established cookware industry, based on bog-iron. I still have a nice small Dutch oven that was made in the early 20th century and I still use it for daily meal preparation.
@БогдановЕвгений Я никогда не указывал, что это чугун. Я использую термин «болотный чугун». Вы правы насчет содержания углерода, хотя существуют региональные различия.
I have a chunk of bog iron ore in my rock garden; it's a heavy red sandstone. I picked it up from the ruins of Martha's Furnace, an iron smelting village from the 1700s, located in the pine woods of South Jersey. The site is deep in the woods and all overgrown, not easy to find. All that's left is a low mound of bricks where the furnace was, and some cellar holes, located at the confluence of two ancient sand roads. I also have an antique cast iron English bulge pot, which was produced at one of the forges in that area. There are many bogs and streams in the pine barrens of South Jersey, and there were several iron working towns there, during colonial days. An hour north of Martha's Furnace, there is a restored and reconstructed iron furnace village, called Allaire State Park. It's well worth a visit if you are ever in the area. These furnaces were large enough to produce liquid iron, which was run into channels in the sand to form bars, or "pigs". Besides the bog iron ore and the charcoal fuel, limestone or seashells were added into the furnace, for flux, which would allow the iron to separate from the slag and run. The pigs of iron were then worked in the forges to produce wrought iron, or re-cast in molds to produce cannonballs, cannons, and iron cooking ware. There is a preserved mansion from one of the other iron towns, called Atsion; the house has iron windowsills, lintels, and door thresholds. The dark brown iron is glossy and rust free.
@timmurphy334 I grew up in the 50s and 60s near Toms River, right at the edge of the deep piney woods. I did a lot of biking along the back roads, and hiking and exploring and camping along the sand roads through the woods. Those roads go for miles through the woods, branching off here and there, and making it very easy to get lost. Some of the roads were highways for the stage coaches and wagons, and can be recognized by the deep banks on either side of the two deep ruts that form the road. Other roads are shallower, and were made by the colliers who cut the wood and made charcoal. The colliers' roads can dead end, or double back in a bewildering maze. People get lost out there, and get their cars stuck in the sugar sand.
I live part of the year around the corner from the Lanse aux Meadows Viking site at the northern tip of Newfoundland. I know the blacksmith there and his family and am quite familiar with the archeology and history of the site. Still, this was an excellent presentation and I learned new things. Thank you.
I used to live near Plymouth Mass, where sassafras was a common woodland tree. It was one of the first exports that the Mayflower settlers used to pay off their debts. With its pungent taste, Europeans at the time believed that it could cure scurvy, a vitamin C deficiency common on land as well as at sea, and syphilis, which was a new epidemic in Europe. It didn't cure scurvy or syphilis! PS: Sassafras isn't found in Ireland, native only to North America and East Asia.
No. Its the bog iron thats so common in northern europe generally. To be honest Ireland doesnt have a lot of tree cover of any sort - tho' things are slowly improving. I would post links to some good contemporary iron smelting sites but they so often get deleted its not worth bothering.
What is not mentioned: Phosphorus iron is one of the best forge welding irons. Phosphorus lowers the melting point of iron oxide, and natural occuring slag builds up a glass phase protecting the iron from oxidation in the forge. It sticks without any additives. I love to use it as "sticky metal" between steels. I think that is also a thing, why it was used so often in pattern welded steels. But its hardness is not very good. better than mild steel...but not much. Also slag acts against the brittleness of phosphorus steel, because the glas cristals act as an inhibitor for large phosphorus congregations, so its more homgenous in the steel. Modern steel lacks slag (which is good), but without, phosphorus is also bad.
I grew up in Greenland, and saw the film on the surface on the water, the water was discusting and red. Like something dead and rotten was buried there.
I found this presentation fascinating. I have often wished I had included a study of metallurgy in my education. This has inspired me to pursue that in my retirement.
Same with Scandinavia: would this have made iron tools and weapons comparably cheaper for those living in Northern Europe, with consequences for society and warfare?
I had a sudden chicken and egg thought in the midst of the video. We've collected the bog iron, made some charcoal from the local wood, and smelted the ore. Now we have to pound the result but how did we form our first sledge hammers to complete the task? I suppose stone tools or immense wooden hammers. It's like the blacksmith whose first task is to make an anvil.
@brianfleury1084proper treated wooden mallets would also have been used. You can make wooden mallets basically fire resistant and depending on the wood it could be used as a shaping mallets or forging hammer. Copper was great for shaping but would never last long as a forging mallet. Its too soft and wouldn't last long. Altho, plenty of evidence in Egyptian builds with Copper saw blades have been found. Copper was used for a few hundred years before the world started using Iron commonly. I still have my great grandfathers Copper mallets he used as a carpenter. I've even seen people use them as leather working mallets
In Guedelon Castle in France where they are building a castle and living like they would have 800 years ago, they are using techniques from the time. One is making the iron for the castle by hand from the stuff on site. Its not an area with huge iron formations or whatever, so what they do is take the soil and heat it up so much that the iron in the soil melts and pools. They can then take the iron and refine it and work it. When you learn that people were creative like that, it opens up your minds to how much more exciting life would have been back then. Well, exciting and tedious. Obviously not the best way to get iron and it would stink to be an iron worker, but the benefits of having iron to use, especially back then, would have made the inconvenient method of getting much more bearable and would have greatly improved quality of life. I think of soil/bog iron when I think of their salt too. We have this idea that the spice trade was what kept their food exciting. It wasnt. Local people knew local herbs and they had ways of getting salt that didnt rely on extensive trade networks into the middle east. Just like with gold and silver, they had to rely on outside help to get an abundance of that, but they were actually pretty proficient at exploiting their own natural resources. Despite our modern view that they were a bunch of ignorant serfs. By ignorant I mean its largely considered that our modern lifestyles and educations afford us a large and distinct "advantage".
I was on a trip to Lebanon State Park, in the Pine Barrens in southern New Jersey. We took canoes, which is only available to do in the early spring as the water level drops too low. You can see the reddish streaks of iron on the stream bed.
This is fascinating. Thank you!! I have some goethite and it’s one of my favorite rocks. I’ve wanted to learn more about it but I had no idea it is was this amazing!!!
Excellent programme, much appreciated. Did this technology ever reach to Ireland as I lived in Conemara with grandparents as a child and thought I knew all the things to be used in the boglands but never heard of this fantastic discovery. We had big oak walking sticks thousands of years old and as hard and heavy as iron!
There is plenty of bog iron in NJ. The colonial ironmaking industry was based on it. The Pine Barrens are barren now but in colonial times there was a lot of activity there.
I've been wondering if you could 'feed' these by putting the right oxidizing metals and element compounds around to slowly break down and replenish what is precipitating out or whatever this process is called. Anyone have any ideas/understandings of weather this could help speed up the growth of these nodes.
Happy to hear mention of my home province Newfoundland. I love about e hours south of the Viking settlement at Lance Aux Meadows. Was there for a visit last spring but it was before the tourist stuff opened. Where they exhibit many of the Viking artifacts they found there. In peak tourist season, there are acters there dressed in period clothing and does everyday life things the way it was done. There a short in my videos way back. Maybe will go back again this summer.
I have seen the oil like sheen in the bogs of northern Minnesota when I was a kid and as a state wild land fire fighter doing forestry work for the state. I've seen the orange mud
Saw one tiny patch in the drainage creek of Lake Lansing, Michigan (Okemos) 1+ mile up stream to the east of Old US 16's allowanced by Creek and RR dual tracks. We kids, just trapping and messing about. OH! that spot is directly across the creek from the under RR track smaller draining "walking-thru-hunched-over" concrete culvert.
Then became an Oldsmobile-shop rat. Then into GM's "foundry" ha-ha to an SCRAP-UTILIZATIONS "FOUNDRY" with 3 ELECTRO-MELT 10 TON FURNACES AND 3 individual bar-casters each capable of 3 strands of cast steel . The mill was sold, cranked over to make specialty cars+ clunk! This entirety U.S.-went/sold south??Alabama or Georgia. with the German-Mfd 4? 3? compact rolling-mill. 2 more things. It had a Glow Barred/heated VACUUM-DE-GASER ON TRACKS, with the attempted servicing the 3 casters attempting to strand-cast ball bearing hi carbon steel. Lastly a Printed full colored Pamphlet 11 1/2" X 16" ?? of 20 pages. I've lost mine- - - - with most of the crew in their operations.
Great that you did some research into early US iron forges, but a shame that you missed the Winthrop Iron Forge in Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts that predated the Saugus Iron Works. It was the first iron blast furnace in what is now the US. Winthrop soon moved his operation to Saugus because of better ore and water availability.
"Incredible breakdown of the chemical process here! 👏 As a fellow history researcher, I’ve been studying how Eastern metallurgy (specifically the crucible steels and rust-proof iron of Asia) compares to the Western bog iron traditions you just covered. The technological contrast between the two worlds is fascinating. I run a channel (John History Research Club) and would love to share some research or discuss a potential 'East vs. West' collaboration. Is there a business email where I can reach your team? Asst. Prof. Smit Hirpara Love and respect from India
It's the silicone. Modern pure steel separate off all the slag. The old methods incorporated a lot of the silicates from the slag into the Iron, making it a lot more resistant to rust.
Quite interesting when they find Norse ships fromt he Viking age, they often only find traces of wood and the nails. Going to try get this done this summer, i have a bog which contains iron next to my cabin. Would be fun to make a knife blade from it.
Amazing early technology and the longevity of iron made in medieval times from iron ore collected from bog sources! I shudder at the thought of all the current rusty infrastructure and the cost to replace it. And, the possibility of loss of life when non-replaced metals could result in so much structure failure and potential loss of life.
Once a prosperous industrial town, Batsto now appears as it did in the late nineteenth century. During the American Revolution, Batsto’s furnace provided iron goods, including cannons and cannonballs, to General George Washington’s Continental Army. Decades later, Batsto shifted to glass production, manufacturing windowpanes and streetlights for cities like Camden, NJ. Joseph Wharton, a wealthy industrialist from Philadelphia, purchased the village in 1876. No longer producing iron or glass, Wharton turned Batsto into a small farming and milling community that also served as one of his family’s many private estates. Today, Batsto Village is open to the public as a preserved Pine Barrens industrial town. Highlights include an operational 1852 post office, a functional 1882 water-powered sawmill, and an impressive 36-room Victorian mansion. The grounds are open year-round for self-guided tours, and guided tours of Batsto Mansion are available throughout the year.
Nice vid. Except. No way bog iron can replace modern iron and steel in production volume, strength, and alloyable performance characteristics. Many steels are very corrosion resistant, like the stainless steels, and high alloy steels, and highly finished/ coated materials. Bog iron was good for its time, but its time is long gone, as is the time of buggy whips, bows and arrows, castles and trebuchets. Rose tinted history is a farce.
It's not 1 solution it's all solutions working together.. bog irons biggest problem is globohomo green environmental retardation. Big earth raping strip mines a OK 1 guy disturbing a bog for bog iron police dispatched post haste.
My summer place here in Finland ,Rautalampi , "Iron Pond", area ,( home of the family of US Founding Father, Morton (Marttinen)), got it's name from just that. But today, the film on puddles at my place comes from my hobby vehicle , a T-55 tank. Even though it is "new", only 50 kms driven, they leak.... Everything..... And the exhaust spews small oil droplets. Killing mosquitos of the area. So, I sort of returned 41 tons of metal to the area D:
У нас на реке Камчатка , японцы хотели собирать в пойме реки мареное дерево, то что давно было затоплено , когда плотоводы таскали из Ключей , обработанное дерево имеет прекрасный оттенок и очень крепкое не уступая по цене красному дереву.
I have lived in SW Florida in Fort Myers, FL Near a former peat bog owned by Arthur Kelley family since 1964 also this home site was near a Former Civil war era Calvary Stable in the 1960’s my Brother and I found What we thought were Meteors large grape fruit sized chunks with obvious Iron content and separate Quartz Crystals about Jumbo Egg sized somewhat faceted crystalline in shape I now suspect there was a Black Smith Forge and or Iron Smelting operation here prior to it becoming Failed 1940’s Orange Groves then platted Home Sites.
IN '92 There were people saying Norse pattern welding wan an attempt to copy Damascus steel brought back from the Crusades, but I had been shown part of an iron knife dated to the seventh century prior to that.
@mickvonbornemann3824 I think most of the Anglo Saxon swords found are pattern welded, an interesting example is... The Seax of Beagnoth, also known as the Thames scramasax, Anglo-Saxon seax found in 1857 in the Thames estuary near Battersea. It is notable for its elaborate inlaid decoration and the only complete runic inscription of the twenty-eight letter Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet, along with the name "Beagnoth" in runic letters.
What about using iron from deposits laid down millions of years ago, in the "Great Dying", the largest extinction event? Tons of iron was deposited in that edisode
Of course I know bog ore. I have just to dig a little bit in the garden of my parents to find it. If you put a piece of it somewhere exposed to the weather (the ore, not the iron!), it will dissolve quite fast.
Found two hunks of cratered, ancient iron in a gravel pit in Woburn, England. It was hard, a file skated off. I thought it was a meteorite, so I sent it to Wasson, to saw it in half, & acid etch it to look for Widmanstatten lines. Instead, it had gas bubbles, which meteors never have. They form in planetary cores, under too much pressure for gas bubbles. Wasson said it was bog iron. 😢
I feel like this should've been included but it wasn't so I looked it up. The reason modern iron production removes potassium is because potassium can damage furnaces and other equipment during the production process. It also reduces the efficiency of the modern smelting process
Do you mean potassium (a metal) or phosphorus (a non-metal)? Just curious if you were referring to the phosphorus mentioned in the video, or introducing a new detail about potassium.
Surely we could make industrial quantities of high phosphorus iron today without using bog ore. I for one would like an axe that I could pass down to my great grandchildren or have nails that will outlast the home they are in. With some research we could have bridges that are both safe against earthquakes and will outlast the cities they are built in. Perhaps even alloys that are rust resistant but not brittle that could be used in cars and other applications.
Ik we'd have an issue with a 2nd industrial revolution if we had to start over and start mining again, but I can't help but think that because we have dug it all up, hows it gonna get back down? We're good at recycling...
What is this ,'CE' ?? is it anything to do with Caesium ?? Phosphorous in Iron that is to be cast into non load-bearing structures is quite acceptable because the presence of phosphorous is beneficial to make molten iron flow better into intricate moulds. The presence of sulphur in steel is also beneficial in certain cases, because sulphur aids free machining. Even some Stainless steels have deliberate sulphur levels, think SS 303.
When I was a kid, I'm 73 now, we had a fishing/swimming spot near a bridge over a boggy creek. I remember seeing an oily looking film and rusty coloured mud in a seep beside the creek. I thought maybe there was a Model T ran off the road into the creek. Now I'm thinking bog iron.
I have seen it to in my childhood Denmark. I was living next to a small lake and we also had the problem that our water well's eventually turned full of red stuff. The water became undrinkable.
Yes; I too have seen this many times thinking something with oil was trashed there. Along the same line also thinking it was a coal seam leaking.
Why do you think knowledge of bog iron faded while other metalworking traditions survived?
I find it in coastal swampy areas in oregon, I allways thought it was contamination of some sort although it was in unlikely areas for that.. pretty cool now!
I live in the Anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania. There are numerous areas where acid mine drainage pools and produces this oily effect. I've also seen it in swampy areas that aren't near mine works and I intuitively made a connection but today is the first time I am learning about bog iron.
Now I'm wondering if these mine drainage areas would be a good source of ore for blacksmithing.🤷♂️ Time to do some research and experiments!🎉
Hm, In the Netherlands, there used to be a fairly well-established cookware industry, based on bog-iron. I still have a nice small Dutch oven that was made in the early 20th century and I still use it for daily meal preparation.
I love my cast iron pans 🥳
Это железо далеко от чугуна. В чугуне минимум 2,5% углерода, а в болотном его нет совсем.
@БогдановЕвгений Я никогда не указывал, что это чугун. Я использую термин «болотный чугун». Вы правы насчет содержания углерода, хотя существуют региональные различия.
I have a chunk of bog iron ore in my rock garden; it's a heavy red sandstone. I picked it up from the ruins of Martha's Furnace, an iron smelting village from the 1700s, located in the pine woods of South Jersey. The site is deep in the woods and all overgrown, not easy to find. All that's left is a low mound of bricks where the furnace was, and some cellar holes, located at the confluence of two ancient sand roads. I also have an antique cast iron English bulge pot, which was produced at one of the forges in that area. There are many bogs and streams in the pine barrens of South Jersey, and there were several iron working towns there, during colonial days. An hour north of Martha's Furnace, there is a restored and reconstructed iron furnace village, called Allaire State Park. It's well worth a visit if you are ever in the area. These furnaces were large enough to produce liquid iron, which was run into channels in the sand to form bars, or "pigs". Besides the bog iron ore and the charcoal fuel, limestone or seashells were added into the furnace, for flux, which would allow the iron to separate from the slag and run. The pigs of iron were then worked in the forges to produce wrought iron, or re-cast in molds to produce cannonballs, cannons, and iron cooking ware. There is a preserved mansion from one of the other iron towns, called Atsion; the house has iron windowsills, lintels, and door thresholds. The dark brown iron is glossy and rust free.
You just have a Pa resident a good reason to visit NJ!
I have heard of this area, in the pine barrens of New Jersey, before. I found this information, to be very cool. I'm from Long Island.
@timmurphy334 I grew up in the 50s and 60s near Toms River, right at the edge of the deep piney woods. I did a lot of biking along the back roads, and hiking and exploring and camping along the sand roads through the woods. Those roads go for miles through the woods, branching off here and there, and making it very easy to get lost. Some of the roads were highways for the stage coaches and wagons, and can be recognized by the deep banks on either side of the two deep ruts that form the road. Other roads are shallower, and were made by the colliers who cut the wood and made charcoal. The colliers' roads can dead end, or double back in a bewildering maze. People get lost out there, and get their cars stuck in the sugar sand.
Also Batsto state park furnace .
The knowledge of the ancients is fascinating !
if you clean rust with phosphoric acid you get ferric phosphate as a top layer. it is rust resistant.
yes, Ospho! preserves my old cast iron fireplace too..
Low budget Parkerization
Yes phosphoric acid is the main/active ingredient in many rust conversation/protection compounds I'm pretty sure.
it but it is sure hard to find I was restoring some old metal lawn chairs when i wanted it I sure couldn't find it
@davidnewland2556Home Depot or Lowes..paint sections
I live part of the year around the corner from the Lanse aux Meadows Viking site at the northern tip of Newfoundland. I know the blacksmith there and his family and am quite familiar with the archeology and history of the site. Still, this was an excellent presentation and I learned new things. Thank you.
this is good. the north coast of Calif and Oregon have old dunes with bogs and iron nodules that we pick up in washes with a magnet floor sweeper.
This probably explains why rust was not a major problem with medieval armour.
바보...?
If I had a bog iron hammer ⚒️
I would hammer in the morning 🌄
I'd hammer in the evening, all over this land...
And that's a long walk, let me tell you!
Metallurgy is the most amazing science I’ve witnessed, to date.
Many old furnaces built on slopes for draft air found in new england. Date to viking era.
I recycle and clean aluminum on a slope by my barn.
When we abandoned it iron became cheaper.
Here in south Sweden they use to pick up the mud winter time from the lakes , making holes in the ice
I saw a YT video that identified sassafras as the second most important export from the colonies, below tobacco.
We have this everywhere in Ireland
I used to live near Plymouth Mass, where sassafras was a common woodland tree. It was one of the first exports that the Mayflower settlers used to pay off their debts. With its pungent taste, Europeans at the time believed that it could cure scurvy, a vitamin C deficiency common on land as well as at sea, and syphilis, which was a new epidemic in Europe. It didn't cure scurvy or syphilis! PS: Sassafras isn't found in Ireland, native only to North America and East Asia.
@causewaykayak
The guy below says it wasn’t native to Ireland. Maybe it’s common now because it was introduced? 🤷🏻♀️
No. Its the bog iron thats so common in northern europe generally.
To be honest Ireland doesnt have a lot of tree cover of any sort - tho' things are slowly improving.
I would post links to some good contemporary iron smelting sites but they so often get deleted its not worth bothering.
What is not mentioned: Phosphorus iron is one of the best forge welding irons. Phosphorus lowers the melting point of iron oxide, and natural occuring slag builds up a glass phase protecting the iron from oxidation in the forge. It sticks without any additives. I love to use it as "sticky metal" between steels. I think that is also a thing, why it was used so often in pattern welded steels. But its hardness is not very good. better than mild steel...but not much. Also slag acts against the brittleness of phosphorus steel, because the glas cristals act as an inhibitor for large phosphorus congregations, so its more homgenous in the steel. Modern steel lacks slag (which is good), but without, phosphorus is also bad.
Interesting. Thanks for the info.
I always wondered what that rainbow sheen was, guess I have bog iron. Makes sense, it's all red clay around her
Going by all the comments, it seems to be widespread across the globe...🤔
😎👍☘️🍻
I grew up in Greenland, and saw the film on the surface on the water, the water was discusting and red. Like something dead and rotten was buried there.
I found this presentation fascinating. I have often wished I had included a study of metallurgy in my education. This has inspired me to pursue that in my retirement.
In Lithuania the bog iron was the main source of iron since our iron age started in 5 century b.c. and through the middle ages.
Same with Scandinavia: would this have made iron tools and weapons comparably cheaper for those living in Northern Europe, with consequences for society and warfare?
This video really explained a lot.
20 years. That's very exact
I had a sudden chicken and egg thought in the midst of the video. We've collected the bog iron, made some charcoal from the local wood, and smelted the ore. Now we have to pound the result but how did we form our first sledge hammers to complete the task? I suppose stone tools or immense wooden hammers. It's like the blacksmith whose first task is to make an anvil.
That sounds really cool!
I would like to try this myself.
( the egg came first. eggs were being "used", before the existence of "chickens".)
Maybe they started with bronze hammers or meteoric iron?
@keirfarnum6811 I like the idea of bronze hammers. Copper and tin were available to smelt at a lower temperature. I like it.
@brianfleury1084proper treated wooden mallets would also have been used.
You can make wooden mallets basically fire resistant and depending on the wood it could be used as a shaping mallets or forging hammer.
Copper was great for shaping but would never last long as a forging mallet. Its too soft and wouldn't last long.
Altho, plenty of evidence in Egyptian builds with Copper saw blades have been found.
Copper was used for a few hundred years before the world started using Iron commonly.
I still have my great grandfathers Copper mallets he used as a carpenter.
I've even seen people use them as leather working mallets
I thought the thumbnail was an announcement for Sisu 3.
I always wondered what the oily film was in the swamp near my town. So cool to know now.
0:21 "Dennis , there's some lovely filth down 'ere..."
I get that reference 😅
@jayssongreenfield Bloody Anarcho-Syndicalist Peasant
Hahahhaaaaaaahahahaaa, this made my day with this video. A perfect match. Thank you
RIP Terry Jones!
In Guedelon Castle in France where they are building a castle and living like they would have 800 years ago, they are using techniques from the time. One is making the iron for the castle by hand from the stuff on site. Its not an area with huge iron formations or whatever, so what they do is take the soil and heat it up so much that the iron in the soil melts and pools. They can then take the iron and refine it and work it.
When you learn that people were creative like that, it opens up your minds to how much more exciting life would have been back then. Well, exciting and tedious. Obviously not the best way to get iron and it would stink to be an iron worker, but the benefits of having iron to use, especially back then, would have made the inconvenient method of getting much more bearable and would have greatly improved quality of life.
I think of soil/bog iron when I think of their salt too. We have this idea that the spice trade was what kept their food exciting. It wasnt. Local people knew local herbs and they had ways of getting salt that didnt rely on extensive trade networks into the middle east. Just like with gold and silver, they had to rely on outside help to get an abundance of that, but they were actually pretty proficient at exploiting their own natural resources. Despite our modern view that they were a bunch of ignorant serfs. By ignorant I mean its largely considered that our modern lifestyles and educations afford us a large and distinct "advantage".
I like that we have the possibility of not being enslaved (aside from debt)
I was on a trip to Lebanon State Park, in the Pine Barrens in southern New Jersey. We took canoes, which is only available to do in the early spring as the water level drops too low. You can see the reddish streaks of iron on the stream bed.
Great video. Where we used to live there were lots of iron rich small bogs.
Interesting to think that it is replaceable all be it after a long time.
I did not understand the archeological paper that shows the step by step .... can somebody give the title please
Northern source ore/metaal for rustproofing & barnacle resistant paint.
This is actually very interesting and enlightening, thank you.
This is fascinating. Thank you!! I have some goethite and it’s one of my favorite rocks. I’ve wanted to learn more about it but I had no idea it is was this amazing!!!
Absolutely mind bogling😂thx for sharing 😅😊
Excellent programme, much appreciated. Did this technology ever reach to Ireland as I lived in Conemara with grandparents as a child and thought I knew all the things to be used in the boglands but never heard of this fantastic discovery. We had big oak walking sticks thousands of years old and as hard and heavy as iron!
Ireland has a very active iron hobby network often using bog iron
The north recently had an iron festival at Glenravel near Ballymena
Hope you find the Irish link interesting. Its a busy hobby here 🍀
Excellent video. Thanks for explaining how bog iron was used. I worked in Zambia where I saw old bloomeries that used laterite as ore.
There is plenty of bog iron in NJ. The colonial ironmaking industry was based on it. The Pine Barrens are barren now but in colonial times there was a lot of activity there.
There is bog ore in Lancashire.
I wondered what the brown stains and oily sheen on water was.
I have checked and bog ore is also in Lancashire.
❤ bog iron = phosphoric iron
Got it. Blacksmith gold!
We teach children age 9 -10 years old in school about it in Sweden.
The Norse settlement at l'anse ux Meadows in northern Newfoundland had a bog iron smelter and a forge on about 1000 AD
I've been wondering if you could 'feed' these by putting the right oxidizing metals and element compounds around to slowly break down and replenish what is precipitating out or whatever this process is called. Anyone have any ideas/understandings of weather this could help speed up the growth of these nodes.
Awesome video!
Happy to hear mention of my home province Newfoundland. I love about e hours south of the Viking settlement at Lance Aux Meadows. Was there for a visit last spring but it was before the tourist stuff opened. Where they exhibit many of the Viking artifacts they found there. In peak tourist season, there are acters there dressed in period clothing and does everyday life things the way it was done. There a short in my videos way back. Maybe will go back again this summer.
Very useful information thank you
I have seen the oil like sheen in the bogs of northern Minnesota when I was a kid and as a state wild land fire fighter doing forestry work for the state. I've seen the orange mud
Explains why ancient Nord draugr weapons are still perfectly good.
This is good and accurate
A few mistakes, but basically a good and well researched video!
thank you for this precious clip
My pleasure! Always happy to share these insights.
Great video
Great information
Saw one tiny patch in the drainage creek of Lake Lansing, Michigan (Okemos) 1+ mile up stream to the east of Old US 16's allowanced by Creek and RR dual tracks. We kids, just trapping and messing about. OH! that spot is directly across the creek from the under RR track smaller draining "walking-thru-hunched-over" concrete culvert.
Then became an Oldsmobile-shop rat. Then into GM's "foundry" ha-ha to an SCRAP-UTILIZATIONS "FOUNDRY" with 3 ELECTRO-MELT 10 TON FURNACES AND 3 individual bar-casters each capable of 3 strands of cast steel . The mill was sold, cranked over to make specialty cars+ clunk! This entirety U.S.-went/sold south??Alabama or Georgia. with the German-Mfd 4? 3? compact rolling-mill. 2 more things. It had a Glow Barred/heated VACUUM-DE-GASER ON TRACKS, with the attempted servicing the 3 casters attempting to strand-cast ball bearing hi carbon steel. Lastly a Printed full colored Pamphlet 11 1/2" X 16" ?? of 20 pages. I've lost mine- - - - with most of the crew in their operations.
Great that you did some research into early US iron forges, but a shame that you missed the Winthrop Iron Forge in Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts that predated the Saugus Iron Works.
It was the first iron blast furnace in what is now the US. Winthrop soon moved his operation to Saugus because of better ore and water availability.
"Incredible breakdown of the chemical process here! 👏 As a fellow history researcher, I’ve been studying how Eastern metallurgy (specifically the crucible steels and rust-proof iron of Asia) compares to the Western bog iron traditions you just covered. The technological contrast between the two worlds is fascinating.
I run a channel (John History Research Club) and would love to share some research or discuss a potential 'East vs. West' collaboration. Is there a business email where I can reach your team?
Asst. Prof. Smit Hirpara Love and respect from India
It's the silicone. Modern pure steel separate off all the slag. The old methods incorporated a lot of the silicates from the slag into the Iron, making it a lot more resistant to rust.
Now we know what they had for the best steel 🎉, probably still don't have much access to it today 😕
Very interesting, though peat bogs are endangered. I found some iron ore in Iceland on a volcano.
Pescado que ha sufrido una fermentación láctica en manglares
The picture looks like that dude from "Sisu", btw
i remember this oily looking film on water, i thought someone polluted water
I do believe you've just solved the mystery of the ancient Iron Pillar in India that miraculously never rusts!
Outstanding connection, you made there.
Quite interesting when they find Norse ships fromt he Viking age, they often only find traces of wood and the nails. Going to try get this done this summer, i have a bog which contains iron next to my cabin. Would be fun to make a knife blade from it.
Amazing early technology and the longevity of iron made in medieval times from iron ore collected from bog sources! I shudder at the thought of all the current rusty infrastructure and the cost to replace it. And, the possibility of loss of life when non-replaced metals could result in so much structure failure and potential loss of life.
Holy shit, I see this oily film in local fields and assumed it was from vehicles passing over it. Its a really wet area with a lot of clay.
I grew up in NJ . Plenty of bog iron !
Look up Batsto state park iron furnace .
Once a prosperous industrial town, Batsto now appears as it did in the late nineteenth century. During the American Revolution, Batsto’s furnace provided iron goods, including cannons and cannonballs, to General George Washington’s Continental Army. Decades later, Batsto shifted to glass production, manufacturing windowpanes and streetlights for cities like Camden, NJ. Joseph Wharton, a wealthy industrialist from Philadelphia, purchased the village in 1876. No longer producing iron or glass, Wharton turned Batsto into a small farming and milling community that also served as one of his family’s many private estates.
Today, Batsto Village is open to the public as a preserved Pine Barrens industrial town. Highlights include an operational 1852 post office, a functional 1882 water-powered sawmill, and an impressive 36-room Victorian mansion. The grounds are open year-round for self-guided tours, and guided tours of Batsto Mansion are available throughout the year.
Nice vid. Except. No way bog iron can replace modern iron and steel in production volume, strength, and alloyable performance characteristics. Many steels are very corrosion resistant, like the stainless steels, and high alloy steels, and highly finished/ coated materials. Bog iron was good for its time, but its time is long gone, as is the time of buggy whips, bows and arrows, castles and trebuchets. Rose tinted history is a farce.
It's not 1 solution it's all solutions working together.. bog irons biggest problem is globohomo green environmental retardation. Big earth raping strip mines a OK 1 guy disturbing a bog for bog iron police dispatched post haste.
,super!
Valheim taught me that bog Iron is a thing lol.
I think 'limited in quantity' says it all.
Don't forget, whoever smelt it dealt it.
My summer place here in Finland ,Rautalampi , "Iron Pond", area ,( home of the family of US Founding Father, Morton (Marttinen)), got it's name from just that. But today, the film on puddles at my place comes from my hobby vehicle , a T-55 tank. Even though it is "new", only 50 kms driven, they leak.... Everything..... And the exhaust spews small oil droplets. Killing mosquitos of the area. So, I sort of returned 41 tons of metal to the area D:
I see these slicks often. I thought it was oil but maybe not.
У нас на реке Камчатка , японцы хотели собирать в пойме реки мареное дерево, то что давно было затоплено , когда плотоводы таскали из Ключей , обработанное дерево имеет прекрасный оттенок и очень крепкое не уступая по цене красному дереву.
It's not a fair comparison. Modern mild steel and wrought iron have very different properties.
Wrought iron has no carbon content.
I have lived in SW Florida in Fort Myers, FL Near a former peat bog owned by Arthur Kelley family since 1964 also this home site was near a Former Civil war era Calvary Stable in the 1960’s my Brother and I found What we thought were Meteors large grape fruit sized chunks with obvious Iron content and separate Quartz Crystals about Jumbo Egg sized somewhat faceted crystalline in shape I now suspect there was a Black Smith Forge and or Iron Smelting operation here prior to it becoming Failed 1940’s Orange Groves then platted Home Sites.
IN '92 There were people saying Norse pattern welding wan an attempt to copy Damascus steel brought back from the Crusades, but I had been shown part of an iron knife dated to the seventh century prior to that.
Yep, the Anglo-Saxons were pattern welding steel centuries before the crusades.
@mickvonbornemann3824 I think most of the Anglo Saxon swords found are pattern welded, an interesting example is...
The Seax of Beagnoth, also known as the Thames scramasax, Anglo-Saxon seax found in 1857 in the Thames estuary near Battersea. It is notable for its elaborate inlaid decoration and the only complete runic inscription of the twenty-eight letter Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet, along with the name "Beagnoth" in runic letters.
@hetrodoxlysonov-wh9ooyea saw a video about that sword once.
Nice
That's so ironic!
"...many of those rails are still there."
...but we couldn't find any to show you?
What about 304 stainless steel
I'm just thinking if a poor iron ore can be treated with bacteria in this way in artificial lakes/ bogs and then used to make iron/ steel🥸🤔👍🍀
What about using iron from deposits laid down millions of years ago, in the "Great Dying", the largest extinction event? Tons of iron was deposited in that edisode
Apakah jika ada besi pasti ada emas pak
Here, we are more likely to find brown iron ore. This was used by the Celts.
On the "pattern welded", this is not completely true in my opinion and experience.
Loke!
Of course I know bog ore. I have just to dig a little bit in the garden of my parents to find it. If you put a piece of it somewhere exposed to the weather (the ore, not the iron!), it will dissolve quite fast.
There is evidence to suggest at least some of these people were in contact with each other. There’s more evidence all the time.
"Stuff keeps getting older."
~Graham Hancock
цифры по затратам притянуты за уши
Carbon steel open structure and not beaten down with hammers. so iron pounded to a higher density then rolled steel with carbon os way different.
Found two hunks of cratered, ancient iron in a gravel pit in Woburn, England. It was hard, a file skated off. I thought it was a meteorite, so I sent it to Wasson, to saw it in half, & acid etch it to look for Widmanstatten lines. Instead, it had gas bubbles, which meteors never have. They form in planetary cores, under too much pressure for gas bubbles.
Wasson said it was bog iron. 😢
I feel like this should've been included but it wasn't so I looked it up. The reason modern iron production removes potassium is because potassium can damage furnaces and other equipment during the production process. It also reduces the efficiency of the modern smelting process
Do you mean potassium (a metal) or phosphorus (a non-metal)? Just curious if you were referring to the phosphorus mentioned in the video, or introducing a new detail about potassium.
When was distillation
Invented - to make a drink?
Surely we could make industrial quantities of high phosphorus iron today without using bog ore. I for one would like an axe that I could pass down to my great grandchildren or have nails that will outlast the home they are in. With some research we could have bridges that are both safe against earthquakes and will outlast the cities they are built in. Perhaps even alloys that are rust resistant but not brittle that could be used in cars and other applications.
Ik we'd have an issue with a 2nd industrial revolution if we had to start over and start mining again, but I can't help but think that because we have dug it all up, hows it gonna get back down? We're good at recycling...
India several examples of iron that does not rust - very old. See Praveen Mohan
Pure magic in its own... and Yes... i belive... that there is a little of the God... Thor... in all of us... just in the waiting...
I believe bog iron was an important export from the pre-America colonies. I see now 15:30
What is this ,'CE' ?? is it anything to do with Caesium ?? Phosphorous in Iron that is to be cast into non load-bearing structures is quite acceptable because the presence of phosphorous is beneficial to make molten iron flow better into intricate moulds. The presence of sulphur in steel is also beneficial in certain cases, because sulphur aids free machining. Even some Stainless steels have deliberate sulphur levels, think SS 303.
Loke
по сучасному лімоніт, це саме те заради чого стародавні слов'янськи народи йшли на північ ради стратегічного на той час металу заліза !