Slag-Glazed Stone Shows
Adhesions
Slag-Glazed Stone Shows
Adhesions
This small slag-glazed stone was found in the collection of the Fayette County Historical Society Museum, Washington CH, Ohio. It originated in one of the Deer Creek pit iron furnaces excavated by Arlington Mallery, 1949-1950. This stone is typical of many of these diagnostic artifacts which have a transparent glaze and several adhesions (A) left by its neighboring stones in the hearth matrix.
Glazed stones found in and around the small pit furnaces of Ohio range from just a few inches long and thick up to a few the size of American footballs. Larger stones found in the furnace debris, however, are nearly always unglazed. This leads to the conclusion that the liquid slag, in general, coated only the small stones at the top of the matrix.
Apparently the cold blast of air roaring upward through the stone matrix during a smelt limited the down flow of the hot liquid. Stones of the hearth matrix were apparently graded upward from large to small so the charge of fuel and ore would not sift down through the larger gaps. Photo by Duane Aston, Ph.D., 1991.