Rock Dumps Are A Pain!

[DeepSeaDan]

What would have been a great trove of old treasures was destroyed by the practice of reinforcing riverbanks using rock pour. Heartbreaker! Everything I un-covered was broken. Early on, finding an old pontiled med ( broken, of course ,) sent me into a feeding frenzy of rock moving / bottom fanning etc., but it was all trashed. My lone intact find was a nice flask, but it was found mid-river. Ah well, the search for history will continue!

 

[UnderMiner]

181 Pearl Street, oof, very historic street, that's the street where my ancestors lived long ago. Pearl Street got its name because long ago in the 17th-18th century there were mudflats that would appear at low tide in that location and the locals would go down there and collect the oysters from the mud, apparently there were alot of pearls in those oysters. Pearl Street still exists but very much inland on top of where those mudflats once were.

 

[DeepSeaDan]

181 Pearl Street, oof, very historic street, that's the street where my ancestors lived long ago. Pearl Street got its name because long ago in the 17th-18th century there were mudflats that would appear at low tide in that location and the locals would go down there and collect the oysters from the mud, apparently there were alot of pearls in those oysters. Pearl Street still exists but very much inland on top of where those mudflats once were.

Hey Underminer, thanks for that bit of history - very cool! Do you have any pictures from your ancestors era?

 

[UnderMiner]

Hey Underminer, thanks for that bit of history - very cool! Do you have any pictures from your ancestors era?

No problem! No pictures from that side of the family that far back unfortunately! The oldest photos I have were taken in Brooklyn around 1900.

 

[hemihampton]

Hear in Michigan I talked to a guy that did under water welding in Boat Marinas, he had a name for all that concrete, he said they call it Rip Rap or something like that. LEON.

 

[DeepSeaDan]

Hear in Michigan I talked to a guy that did under water welding in Boat Marinas, he had a name for all that concrete, he said they call it Rip Rap or something like that. LEON.

Ok, you lost me on this one, Hemi - what concrete?

 

[Johnny M]

What would have been a great trove of old treasures was destroyed by the practice of reinforcing riverbanks using rock pour. Heartbreaker! Everything I un-covered was broken. Early on, finding an old pontiled med ( broken, of course ,) sent me into a feeding frenzy of rock moving / bottom fanning etc., but it was all trashed. My lone intact find was a nice flask, but it was found mid-river. Ah well, the search for history will continue!

I found a farm dump once here in Watertown Connecticut that looked like they just poured rocks,bits of farm equipment metal and enamelware and bottles down a bank! Not any real dirt, just vines and stuff growing across the top.Frigging nightmare with criers. Basically most bottles were pontiled too. Lots of aqua meds like Davis painkillers, S.O. Richardson bitters,Wistars Balsams, etc some blue CT sodas like Gillette and Harris, a cornucopia flask or two, etc. An emerald green small Davids and Black OP cylinder ink(small size) too.There was a super smashed Brinkerhoffs with a real gnarly sticky sand pontil too to round things out. Real obvious pontil with lots of texture compared to most I've seen. I was pulling some good sized rocks apart at times to get in the gaps where there was metal and bottle pieces in the voids.Spiders too! I found one whole bottle. A little aqua ink shape with a wide ground lip embossed Mounseys Preston Salts or something. After all the grief and desperation ripping the rocks apart on the bank finding super broken glass,( I even got poison ivy!) the one bottle I find whole has some darn key mold base instead of a pontil! I've never seen one of those NOT pontiled in all the years since. Yeah, I hate rock dumps! Johnny M.

 

[DeepSeaDan]

I found a farm dump once here in Watertown Connecticut that looked like they just poured rocks,bits of farm equipment metal and enamelware and bottles down a bank! Not any real dirt, just vines and stuff growing across the top.Frigging nightmare with criers. Basically most bottles were pontiled too. Lots of aqua meds like Davis painkillers, S.O. Richardson bitters,Wistars Balsams, etc some blue CT sodas like Gillette and Harris, a cornucopia flask or two, etc. An emerald green small Davids and Black OP cylinder ink(small size) too.There was a super smashed Brinkerhoffs with a real gnarly sticky sand pontil too to round things out. Real obvious pontil with lots of texture compared to most I've seen. I was pulling some good sized rocks apart at times to get in the gaps where there was metal and bottle pieces in the voids.Spiders too! I found one whole bottle. A little aqua ink shape with a wide ground lip embossed Mounseys Preston Salts or something. After all the grief and desperation ripping the rocks apart on the bank finding super broken glass,( I even got poison ivy!) the one bottle I find whole has some darn key mold base instead of a pontil! I've never seen one of those NOT pontiled in all the years since. Yeah, I hate rock dumps! Johnny M.

Sounds like a nightmare, Johnny M. Some of the many reasons I like the Deeps are: cool water, zero spiders & no poison ivy!
I commend you for your efforts in that vine-choked, arachnid-infested bank of broken dreams and I rejoice in your key-mold salts reward!

Better days will surely follow...

 

[hemihampton]

OOPPPS. When you said the Rocks were used to reinforce the Riverbanks it made me think of what they do here to reinforce the Riverbanks, they use busted up chunks of old concrete slabs. I just now realized what you said they used & what I was thinking they used here is 2 different things, for some reason at the time I made that comment I was thinking it was the same thing. My Mistake. but it's similar, as the chunks of concrete will smash any Bottles or Cans in it's way. LEON.

 

[DeepSeaDan]

OOPPPS. When you said the Rocks were used to reinforce the Riverbanks it made me think of what they do here to reinforce the Riverbanks, they use busted up chunks of old concrete slabs. I just now realized what you said they used & what I was thinking they used here is 2 different things, for some reason at the time I made that comment I was thinking it was the same thing. My Mistake. but it's similar, as the chunks of concrete will smash any Bottles or Cans in it's way. LEON.

Yes indeed, I've seen many a riverbank cluttered with slabs of broken concrete; it does a great job of reinforcing the bank and a thorough job of smashing great stuff. Sometimes things survive if they get pushed down the slope, or they're lifted up into the water column, then drift down to settle amongst the slabs.