What is ash layer ?

[towhead]

When you talk about an "ash layer"....What is that? Ash as in ashes from being burnt?

 

[bottlediger]

burnt stove ash, fireplace ash, commercal ash, etc. Found in dumps and privys. Usally from coal and wood

Digger Ry

 

[towhead]

Thanks Ry. I've been digging around my neighbors house, and found some odd kind of rocks that appear to have been thrown over something....it reminds me of coral reef- it is rough, jagged with sharp edges, and is a dark brown color.... I thought maybe I misuderstood what ash was, and maybe it was a rock type also...
DUH

 

[GuntherHess]

That sounds like slag.

Ash was often used as a cap layer for dumps. It tends to be corrosive and often stains bottles.

 

[justadddirt]

From your discription i'd guess you have coal clinkers there. Sometimes when coal is burnt the ash fuses together makeing a nasty jagged mass. Anyone that ever fired a coal furnace knows what i'm talking about. Clinkers get caught in the furnace grates & can be a real pain to get out.

 

[towhead]

Thanks Matt & Gary....I will take a picture, sometime this week, of this "rock"....

 

[RICKJJ59W]

I was just gonna say that, good ole coal clinkers.[] thats what I call them to.

 

[diggincajun]

Oh yea the good old ash layer and there is what is known as the rust layer here in Fl. when I probe and I hit the rust layer you know under it is the gold mine. I had dug a hole with the ash layer and under it were the bottle some burnt. also have the rack out, where they racked the burnt material and I'll find bottles closer to the surface where they were racked upward.

 

[logueb]

Well, Here I go again telling how old I am. But, honestly this stuff is true. I first started to school in a wood building that was heated by coal in pot-bellied stoves. Three grades in the same room with one teacher. Loved to go to the coal pile with the coal bucket and look for fossils in the coal. These things generated a lot of ashes and clinkers. We used wood burning stoves at home, and you had to remove the ashes quite often. Just imagine the amount of ashes that would be generated in a week in a large city where most of the heating was done by wood or coal.

 

[towhead]

I should be getting a picture, tomorrow, of whatever it is....