CALDIGR2
Posts: 2270
Joined: 6/20/2005 Status: offline
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You guys are killin' me with your whining over deep diggin'. I have more than 45 yrs of DIGGING experience, and have dug by hand to a depth of 27 ft, straight down. It took three of us 3 days to get to the bottom of the hole. Would I do it again? ABSOLUTELY! Pulling out quality bottles does a lot to reduce the "pucker factor" and claustrophic feeling from being enclosed in dirt. The privy was brick lined, which helped to hold the soil from collapsing. A LOOONG ladder is a must. The trenching method is preferred, but if space is limited you just have to make do. Nowadays, at age 60, I much prefer having some machinery to remove overburden, particularly if the layers are of unstable materials with excessive weight at the top. Most dump situations that I have experience with are are suffuciently sized to allow a backhoe to be used. From the looks of your glass, dirtflicker, I'd say that your layer dates from the early 20th C. The gin is a typical style of that period, as are the others. There are no applied tops or lips, and the the neck finishes are tooled. The lack of embossed bottles is another indicator of the pre-ABM era. There are probably some "throw back" bottles in there, too. Most dumps have them, as people used containers until they were empty and often re-filled them time and again. Keep at it, don't undermine too far, and ALWAYS use the buddy system. 4 or 6 eyes are better than 2. Mike
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