While milum's gone, I'll stick in a word. In early colonial times in Massachusetts a number
of places had enough iron in soil that it leached out into many ponds and bogs, and was
used by coloniists to make cast iron pots, etc. The soluble iron when it got into pond
became insoluble, and made a layer on bottom of pond that got thick enough in twenty
years to be dug out again. But imagine work of digging a ton of that goo and gunk in
a day's work, and then having to transport it over a footpath to nearest forge, perhaps
ten miles away. Instead of cash you got a pot or two, and so then had to hoof many
miles to find someone who could barter you something for it. A rough way to make a
living. Every brook just about had a forge on it, to work bellows to make forge hot
enough to burn wood charcoal to reduce iron to a spidery "bloom" which could then
be removed, and when enough was obtained, be remelted to make the pots, etc.
Incidentally, high water table in all those bog areas is now basis for cranberry bogs,
which I understand are now Massachusetts largest agricultural enterprise.
Buy OCEAN SPRAY cranberry juice. End of commercial.
