Hitting the Illinois tropics

[Lowbatts]

Oh yeah those torrents yesterday made a difference today! Did a walk through of an area today, looking for signs of some suspected early usage. Found a few, among them D-Dub and I each got minie balls. His obviously imapcted much greater than the one I found, they were about 10 yards apart too. Mine has a seriously blown skirt, indicating possible over-charging. Both appear to be .58 caliber bullets. They both have two cannilures and I think that is at odds with military prescribed rounds of the day, which had the three rings. Found a few newer ones also. Dan got what maybe a piece of triple-0 buckshot as well.

One thing I like about the site is an almost total lack of 20 century trash, truly quiet ground, if not for the numerous glacial drift bringing in iron-range debris and leaving hot rocks in abundance. Still processing a shot of one of the erratics Dan thought might have been used as an ancient trail marker. Might briefly post that one later.

Jon, sweet old axe head and wedge! There was woodmen there back in the day! Now I may get to narrow down that search pattern a bit....

 

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[watercolor]

Tim, cool lead You have a nice site there. . . any float copper?

 

[michigan michael]

WTG!

 

[d-dub]

Here are the pictures of the ancient trail marker. The pictures don't show the exact "shape" of the trail marker. It was "hard" to get a good reference angle that would truly show the "girth" of this trail marker. I will leave it to your imagination to see the marker for what it is. We came to our own conclusion as to its meaning.

 

[Lowbatts]

Didn't see that rock from the right perspective through the lens, Dan....

Mark, nope, don't think any float copper survived the trip down in the ice. But I do think it would be a natural place to look for geodes along the creek beds though I didn't have my rock eyes on. Some of the rocks did bell tone on me (overload signals) so they did have high content. But the place is very instructive for the md'er who wants to learn the difference between all those "iron" signals and the presence of actual iron objects.

 

[treasurefiend]

Great finds bud, that one with the skirt looks like it was pulled. Is there a hole on the tip of the bullet? It could of been pulled then just mutilated for fun as a means to pass the time.

 

[Lowbatts]

Nope, no hole in it Kermit. Solid tissue-style impact point on the tip. Sometimes if you overcharged the round it would blow the skirt on one side or at multiple sides.

The one Dan found is so blown on the front it looks like it hit a rock as soon as it left the muzzle.

 

[kimsdad]

I think that marker was placed by the ancient Foongai tribe.

Of course when the Anglos settled in the area, they altered the name to fun-guy....

 

[silverfreak]

Very cool finds.