Friday night finds...well, a couple anyway

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03Malibu

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hey all,

I'm up at my in-laws house, and down the road is where I've been digging and exploring for a couple of weeks now. I'm here until Sunday night, so I have 3 days, now 2, to dig. I only found a few things tonight. I didn't bring the cables for my digital camera, so any pics will be posted either Sunday night or Monday night.

Most of the items I found were vials; 3 in different shapes and sizes. One has a pinkish colored powder still in the bottom of it, another one is empty, and the final one had some small (what appeared to be) beads inside. I accidently tipped the vial upside down and the few that were in there came out and rolled away (dumb amateur mistake), but I recovered two. I found another Chesebrough Vaseline jar, this one is smaller than the one in my previous post. It's about 2 1/2 inches tall, it still has the cover on top, and some liquid inside. My question to anyone who can answer it is this: If there are no apparent holes in the cover or leaks, is it possible that the vaseline has liquified? Or is it water that may have leaked in? As I stated, it appears to be very well sealed with no holes or anything. The final item that I unearthed is a bottle about 4 inches tall, maybe 5, anyway it says "Hood's Tooth Powder C.L. Hood & Co. Lowell, Mass." I looked it up online and found a page about the company and it was somewhat informative. The page showed some bottles that are unopened and in mint condition as if they came from the factory itself. The one I found didn't have the stopper in the top of it, but once I viewed the page I realized that I did have the stopper. I found it in a seperate scoopful of dirt, but it is rusted. It has a cork piece, with a metal handle or something running down through it, half of the metal is gone, but at least I found it.

There are a lot of items that I wish were actually in one peice, I've found sides of bottles with embossments, quite a few are from here in Maine, from the Portland area. I've found numerous that are embossed from New Hampshire, Mass, and I found something from Troy (I dont know, maybe it was Ohio, at least that is what I think it said). I've attempted to look up the bottles on Google as well as on this site, but haven't come up with any info on them. There's a bottle that says "Boston Importers and Ballers" I couldn't find anything on that, but it was broken, so it really doesn't matter. I just get curious about how all the items I come across came about, whether they are broken or not.

I'm new to bottle digging so I'm making quite a few mistakes. I was out this afternoon and I unearthed a broken bottle, but the front half was still there. On the front of it was either a hand painted label or a paper label that was quite unique looking, anyway, in my attempt to read what it said I tried to brush some dirt of it and....OOOPS, I rubbed the label right off, as if it melted when I touched it.

I've got one more question before I end this very, very long post...and that is: As I've been digging, I've noticed that there are quite a few layers that I encounter. I'm digging into the side of a hill, and so I see the layers, first there is about 2 feet of dirt, then I encounter a layer of slate (very thin, only about 1/4 of an inch thick, and big sheets of it) then I come to some more dirt, then comes the thick tar like black stuff that contains different items, mostly rocks and in and under that comes bottles and plates. So, with that all said, Why is there a layer of slate? Is it because people used it to cover up the items? Or is it just some sort of geological thing here in Maine for it to be there and that it somehow got there over time?

Hope this post wasnt too long, I tend to ramble.

Thanks for any input, you all seem very, very informed on these things, so I hope you all can help.
 

craigc90

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I run into old slate roofing when I dig. I think its from construction debris. When they were roofing they would dump the damage and cut peices also they would dump dirt over the dump as a cap it could have been dirt from a slate vane.
 

Ye Olde Prospector

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Hi Malibu,

Sounds like you hit a layer of slate shingles. They were used from late 1800's til the 1940's in some places. They used a lot of slate shingles during WWII as well as asbestos siding in some areas because they were worried about some places being bombed. Black stuff could be wood ash from a place that burned.

Cliff
 

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