I drove past this between Salida and Cotopaxi on State Highway 50 in Colorado. I had to turn around and tell whoever that I stood with them totally assuming I was correct. I was and got the biggest hug of appreciation for doing so.
From my understanding, there are close to 3000 children being held around this country after being seized from their parents at the border.
Many will never see their Mom and Dad again because Republicans are totally evil.
You bastards!
7/26/11
The Original Coneheads
The first time I saw these years ago my mind immediately flashed back to SNL and the Coneheads. What can I say. These are coke ovens and are located in NW Colorado.
Those are actually charcoal ovens, not coke ovens. Same process, different source material -- coke ovens cook coal into coke, charcoal ovens cook wood into charcoal. Mining districts of the West did not have easy access to coal until the railroads came to town, but they had plenty of wood (well, until they cut it all down), and used the resulting charcoal to fire their silver smelters, where silver-lead ore was melted, the lead oxidized, and the liquid silver poured off. Gold used a different process, generally mercury amalgamation at first, then the cyanide process once that was invented, the amalgamation process did require high heat to vaporize the mercury that had bonded with the gold (which was then sent through a distillation coil to turn it back into metallic mercury), but nowhere near what silver-lead required -- mercury evaporates at 357C, zinc mel;ts at 420C and evaporates at 906C, lead melts at 328C and evaporates at 1750C, silver melts at 962C and evaporates at 1950C, you do the math.
So anyhow, that's just some old-time mining knowledge for your enjoyment ;). The ones in the Appalachians, BTW, generally *ARE* coke ovens. Back in the early days, the coal was fired off close to the mines. Nowadays they just haul the coal down to the flatlands, since they have to coke it in a furnace that has appropriate emissions controls nowadays. A situation that the Republican Party would greatly like to eliminate, since they support the unlimited right for their poisons to trespass onto *my* property (yeah, they respect property rights, as long as it's THEIR property rights, and not MY property rights... what hypocrites!).
Most are calling them coke ovens Tux. I do not doubt what you say. This is what I found under one picture -
BROMIDE CHARCOAL KILNS, aka "The Coke Ovens", Greystone, Colorado vicinity. Dating from 1898, the four stone charcoal kilns are the only remaining intact structures associated with the Bromide Mining and Milling Company's smelter facility. The period of intensive operations at the facility extended through the end of World War I. The kilns have been ranked by a researcher of Colorado's coke ovens and charcoal kilns as the best surviving examples of their type in the state.
There is coal it seems everywhere out here. Could this be a combination of both charcoal and coke?
We also had those here in the Appalachians. Snort some of that for forty years like my dad had to do. Still lived to be 80.
ReplyDeleteThose are actually charcoal ovens, not coke ovens. Same process, different source material -- coke ovens cook coal into coke, charcoal ovens cook wood into charcoal. Mining districts of the West did not have easy access to coal until the railroads came to town, but they had plenty of wood (well, until they cut it all down), and used the resulting charcoal to fire their silver smelters, where silver-lead ore was melted, the lead oxidized, and the liquid silver poured off. Gold used a different process, generally mercury amalgamation at first, then the cyanide process once that was invented, the amalgamation process did require high heat to vaporize the mercury that had bonded with the gold (which was then sent through a distillation coil to turn it back into metallic mercury), but nowhere near what silver-lead required -- mercury evaporates at 357C, zinc mel;ts at 420C and evaporates at 906C, lead melts at 328C and evaporates at 1750C, silver melts at 962C and evaporates at 1950C, you do the math.
ReplyDeleteSo anyhow, that's just some old-time mining knowledge for your enjoyment ;). The ones in the Appalachians, BTW, generally *ARE* coke ovens. Back in the early days, the coal was fired off close to the mines. Nowadays they just haul the coal down to the flatlands, since they have to coke it in a furnace that has appropriate emissions controls nowadays. A situation that the Republican Party would greatly like to eliminate, since they support the unlimited right for their poisons to trespass onto *my* property (yeah, they respect property rights, as long as it's THEIR property rights, and not MY property rights... what hypocrites!).
- Badtux the Mining Penguin
Most are calling them coke ovens Tux. I do not doubt what you say.
ReplyDeleteThis is what I found under one picture -
BROMIDE CHARCOAL KILNS, aka "The Coke Ovens", Greystone, Colorado vicinity.
Dating from 1898, the four stone charcoal kilns are the only remaining intact structures associated with the Bromide Mining and Milling Company's smelter facility. The period of intensive operations at the facility extended through the end of World War I. The kilns have been ranked by a researcher of Colorado's coke ovens and charcoal kilns as the best surviving examples of their type in the state.
There is coal it seems everywhere out here. Could this be a combination of both charcoal and coke?
Thanks for pointing these things out Bt!