geology question

[madmmac]

I worked at Kaiser Aluminum in Tacoma, that stuff looks like the crap that was in the ball mill for making/grinding the anode/cathode paste.

Coal tar pitch, another part of the mix smells a lot like diesel. Nasty stuff!!

[scottmandue]

Eggs! There eggs! Put them back in the ground before they hatch!

Were doomed!

[HelmetHead]

Kinda looks like the catalyst I once shoveled out of a reactor vessel working a summer job 20 years ago.

Helmethead

[johnco]

Lube, I'll get some out to you as soon as I get your address. too much of a coincedence they found remnants of an old fort/stockade, wagon wheels, personal items and kegs of these things long ago when dredging the river. also history puts at least one yankee regiment in this same area June 30th, 1864. the 11th Regiment from Wisconsin. I'll send you balls and some of the oily stuff it was found in. it sure stinks.. I'm still running my pump to keep water from under the pool from all the rain and you can smell it in the discharge. you can smell it in the dirt pile also

[johnco]

you guys don't seem to realize there is NO industry around this area except fishing. no plants, no manufacturing, no oil wells near.. never was, never will be. it's a ridge of high ground surrounded by swamp where they dredged the river to have enough dry ground to build a subdivision. if not for the levee built many years ago, it would be underwater. it still goes underwater at times. not that many decades ago people were hunting and trapping here.

[johnco]

Hmmmmm!

THE 69 CALIBER SMOOTHBORE MUSKET WAS MOSTLY USED BY THE CONFEDERACY AS IT WAS A CHEAPER WEAPON. GRANT REFERED TO THIS ROUND AS A - FLYING PUMPKIN - DUE TO ITS INACCURACY.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by johnco

you guys don't seem to realize there is NO industry around this area except fishing. no plants, no manufacturing, no oil wells near.. never was, never will be. it's a ridge of high ground surrounded by swamp where they dredged the river to have enough dry ground to build a subdivision. if not for the levee built many years ago, it would be underwater. it still goes underwater at times. not that many decades ago people were hunting and trapping here.

The one other hypothesis that seemed remotely possible to me is the ball mill hypothesis. I broke one of the small black balls, and it looks and acts like the black tar that I remember being on wooden telephone/power poles when I was younger. I could also see the balls being used in a ball mill.

Looking at a map, I agree, I can't imagine any industry around there, but some of my reading has indicated that it is/was an important port, so I could imagine something being lost overboard.

I washed one of the balls. It seems like a natural stone. It's not 100% regular or homogeneous throughout although it is almost completely white. There are spots of what looks like crystaline structures in the balls. I wouldn't expect the media for ball mills to be natural stone, but then I don't know much about them.

I measured the 4 balls that I have and they are all around 18 mm across (+ .03mm).

I don't know a lot about caliber, so I did some research and found this.
"while the larger .75 caliber British “Brown Bess” would have fired a .69 cal. ball." Apparently the difference in size between the ball and barrel bore is called "windage". So it seems that if these were bullets (which is what I hope) that they were designed for a .75 caliber gun.

I can't really find anything about any material other than lead ever being used for bullets, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

[johnco]

there are some larger balls, but most of the ones I've picked up are all about the same size. I admit it could very well be some sort of industrial garbage, but for it to be in this location that far down is unlikely. it's not like anyone would try to hide something down here in the cesspool of the US. more likely it would have been dumped just about anywhere as usual. not that many years ago, used oilfield equipment was just pushed off the side of rigs rather than transport it back onshore. we're not called cancer alley for nothing.

it could also have grape shot for the cannons. these guys fired chains, nails.. anything they could find.

[johnco]

and no, that's not creosote. I've got a lot of experience dealing with creosote from bulkheads and cribbing in former jobs and that's not what it is. smells similar, but that's about it.

[masraum]

I'm dying to know what the end result of this is. I'm hoping it's the bullets/shot, but I'm open to anything. Hopefully Lubey can shed some light and maybe some of your friends or the professor can shed some light.

[madmmac]

Kaiser Aluminum had an aluminum reduction facility in Chalmette La which had a ball mill in it. The Tacoma Kaiser I worked at is on the National Superfund cleanup site due to their neglect of the environment.

How far are you from Chalmette?

[johnco]

this area is probably 100 miles from Calmette. plenty of swamps from here to there to dump stuff. I should say nothing but swamp. South Louisiana has narrow areas of high ground surround by swamp and water. one highway going east-west tying it all together. don't think anyone would go thru the trouble driving out to this spot and burying something 6 ft down 30 years ago. that's how long this house has been there. I think you might be missing the fact they found other artifacts while dredging the bayou behind the house.

[LeeH]

Originally Posted by masraum

It definitely smells oily or of kerosene or something like that.

Did you try to burn a small portion?

I wonder if you'll ever know for sure. Whether natural or man-made it's definitely interesting.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by madmmac

Kaiser Aluminum had an aluminum reduction facility in Chalmette La which had a ball mill in it. The Tacoma Kaiser I worked at is on the National Superfund cleanup site due to their neglect of the environment.

How far are you from Chalmette?

Chalmette is near New Orleans which has it's own port and route to the Gulf, so it seems unlikely that they'd truck the stuff from one port just to load it on a boat at another smaller port.

[johnco]

a little more history learned today. Talking to a guy that knew a first glance what these things were said the grounds/road at Port Hudson are littered with thousands of these balls. He said a group of Italians were employed making these balls daily to be used as bullets. Also, a friend of mine that lives on the Bayou Teche, where many battles were fought, found many of these on his land. that kind of rules out the industrial waste idea I think. I think I'm getting closer to the real answer now