Slag vs. Pig Iron???

[TabernacleNative]

I've found slag out at Martha, Hampton, and Atsion. It has a "melted" looking texture to it, almost a flow over the surface. I've also seen the slag heaps at Atsion and Hampton, which have a black color. So is the brittle iron like rocks I find especially along the railroad bog iron? I read in Iron In The Pines that "the often brittle, impure, somewhat porous pig iron was refined..." This sounds like what you find along the JCRR tracks.

 

[Ben Ruset]

Bog iron is sometimes hard to tell apart from slag, especially since bad runs of the furnace produced slag high in iron content.

Anything that is black or grey is slag. Anything that is reddish brown or rust colored could either be slag or bog iron. The bog iron I have seen also often has stones in it. Bog iron tends to be a uniform texture, whereas most slags that I have seen have had air pockets in it.

Sometimes, like at Hanover Furnace, you will see slag with bits of charcoal in it.

 

[GermanG]

Slag also often has a more glass-like appearance. Since slag is just the impurities that are present in the bog iron ore prior to separation in the furnace, it can vary widely depending on the mineral makeup of the particular ore being refined. Much of these impurities are silicates, so the resulting ore looks like colored glass.

What you find on old railroad beds is often the product of cleaning out the fireboxes of steam engines. This was the impurities left after burning coal, as opposed to melting iron. These days quarried rock is used for railroad bed ballast, but in the old days they used whatever they had, and the stuff from the steam engines had to be gotten rid of anyway.

 

[TabernacleNative]

I was trying to clear up some confusion. I've been finding that porous, iron-like stuff all around Tabernacle since I was a kid. I just found it odd that it was a lot more common around the railroad tracks. And it is the red/rust looking material. We found a load of it back off Riders Switch along the tracks on Sunday.

 

[Ben Ruset]

Slag also often has a more glass-like appearance. Since slag is just the impurities that are present in the bog iron ore prior to separation in the furnace, it can vary widely depending on the mineral makeup of the particular ore being refined. Much of these impurities are silicates, so the resulting ore looks like colored glass.

Only from hot blast furnaces. Older, cold blast furnaces produced rock-like slag.

It's very likely that slag was used as ballast for the RR tracks around Tabernacle.

 

[pinelandpaddler]

If anyone has any pictures to post, it might help us all get a clearer idea of the finer distinctions between the types of slag and pig.

 

[Ben Ruset]

Pig iron is the finished product. It's black and in a long cylindrical shape.

This is a picture of slag from Federal Forge. This was a cold blast furnace, hence the non-glass like appearance:

Here's some slag from Batsto, from before the furnace switched to hot blast:

 

[MuckSavage]

Slag?

I snapped this of my dog Bear posing with what I guessed was slag. (At the Atsion Furnace area) Is it?

 

[Jerseyman]

Slag also often has a more glass-like appearance. Since slag is just the impurities that are present in the bog iron ore prior to separation in the furnace, it can vary widely depending on the mineral makeup of the particular ore being refined. Much of these impurities are silicates, so the resulting ore looks like colored glass.

What you find on old railroad beds is often the product of cleaning out the fireboxes of steam engines. This was the impurities left after burning coal, as opposed to melting iron. These days quarried rock is used for railroad bed ballast, but in the old days they used whatever they had, and the stuff from the steam engines had to be gotten rid of anyway.

Absolutely correct, German! The Pennsylvania Railroad and other eastern lines were famous for their cinder and clinker roadbeds!! The PRR produced a much higher quantity of this byproduct because they burned bituminous coal in their fireboxes. On the other hand, the Central Railroad of New Jersey and the Reading burned anthracite, primarily because both lines served eastern PA, where miners produced much of the anthracite. The PRR obtained its coal from the mid-Pennsylvania and Western Pennsylvania coalfields. Anthracite burned much hotter than bituminous and semi-bituminous coal, so the anthracite, or so-called "stone coal" produced a lower quantity of cinders. Nonetheless, it still did produce cinders and clinkers, so the railroads used this byproduct as ballast instead of more costly broken rock, like most railroads use today.

Best regards,
Jerseyman

 

[infinite sameness]

whos that handsom boyzie in the pic ooooh the black lab hes adorable next to the huge amazing piece of slag

 

[bobpbx]

I snapped this of my dog Bear posing with what I guessed was slag. (At the Atsion Furnace area) Is it?

Whoa! That is the same piece of slag as the historic photo Ben posted, right? Does anyone else see it that way?

 

[MuckSavage]

Holy Crap! It surely does look like the same piece! I took that pic last year. Should I go & try to replicate the old picture from the same angle & see if you can see the Mill foundation? What's the other building in the backround?

 

[MarkBNJ]

It absolutely looks like the same piece. Struck me as soon as I saw it.

[Edit: here are two pictures that might be of interest. The first is what I believe to be bog iron, alongside an old iron nail that was found in the sand of the parking lot at Harrisville. The second is a group of small pieces of glasseous slag found near Martha. These pieces are different colors and textures. Not sure how well it shows in the photo.]

 

[omega]

Looks like the same chunk of slag at Atsion, in the woods behind the ruins.

I think some of the confusion is related to the terms being used.

In MarkBNJ's first pic there is the nail and what I would call Bog Ore, the stuff they "mined" and put into the furnace along with flux and charcoal to turn into bog iron which was either drawn and put in molds, or flowed into pigs of iron creating the long cylindrical pieces of pig iron we have come to know.

At least that is my take on it.

 

[bobpbx]

Holy Crap! It surely does look like the same piece! I took that pic last year. Should I go & try to replicate the old picture from the same angle & see if you can see the Mill foundation? What's the other building in the backround?

The problem is, you say Atsion, Ben says Batsto. Maybe they moved it to Atsion?

 

[Teegate]

Within an hour or so I will have a photo of it when it was first discovered, and it is much bigger. It was found at Atsion right in the weeds along 206 by Quaker Bridge Road.

Stand by.

Guy

 

[Teegate]

I suspect this may be the original size of the piece of “slag” depicted in the above photo’s. Maybe over the years it has been chipped away and the remains are what is there today. The canal started at 206 and worked it’s way behind the Cotton Mill and back to the river. My description of the location it was found at was slightly off.

This photo is from the BCG.

Guy

 

[Teegate]

Holy Crap! It surely does look like the same piece! I took that pic last year. Should I go & try to replicate the old picture from the same angle & see if you can see the Mill foundation? What's the other building in the backround?

There were a few building in that area. Two were building dating to the "iron era", two were railroad era houses, and the old Atsion hotel was also in that area.

Definitely go back! I will also stop in one day and check it out.

Guy

 

[MuckSavage]

Definitely go back! I will also stop in one day and check it out.

Guy

I'll try for tomorrow (Friday) afternoon!

 

[TabernacleNative]

OK, I'm seeing in the photos that MarkBNJ posted up...

Got the old iron nails, I've found many out at Taunton.
The bog ore, I've also seen many times. Often in Medford Farms where I grew up.
The slag I've seen lots of out at Martha.

The stuff we're trying to figure out is the very metallic looking, very porous looking chunks of rust colored stuff that breaks apart very easily. From what I'm reading, both here and in books, it might be slag with a high bog iron content. Also from Iron In The Pines... "That so much ore was left in the slag testifies to the low efficiency of those early furnaces."

I just find it odd so much is left around if there was still content left in it to be recovered. I'm going to try and get out this weekend to shoot a photo of just what I'm talking about. There's a lot of it out at the RR at Carranza.