So -
I know how to make the gunpowder, and how to make the potassium nitrate and charcoal for it from local materials, but I don't yet know how to get the sulfur locally. The water we have here is called "sulfur water", and I'm wondering if that is a possibility. This area was first settled by Long Hunters, the Sword brothers, specifically because of the sulfur water. The water created "salt licks", which drew game in, and the Swords took advantage of that concentration of game, and eventually filed land claims to settle here.
But if there is sulfur in the water, how to you get it out and separate it from the salts? Does the sulfur content of the coal still in the ground here have something to do with it? Can one extract the sulfur from the coal?
I know how to mold the bullets, but not how to get the lead locally. Some old timers found relatively pure lead outcrops, but I've never seen one. There was an entire lead mine near Fort Chiswell in Virginia, but I've not found any around here.
I know how to make the caps and the primer compound, and there ought to be enough cans around here to supply a couple of generations already with caps.
I know how to get the iron out of the dirt, where it's found locally to get out of the dirt (there was an iron bloomery about 3 miles from where I was raised), and how to turn it into steel... I know how to work it down, but probably do not have the artistry to make it into a gun. That would fall to someone else, maybe someone I could trade iron and powder to...
The point is, it's not me. I merely stand on the shoulders of giants just to see the way ahead, and I have no idea who those giants were, or how they discovered what I can use now, and I wonder about them frequently.
.
I know how to make the gunpowder, and how to make the potassium nitrate and charcoal for it from local materials, but I don't yet know how to get the sulfur locally. The water we have here is called "sulfur water", and I'm wondering if that is a possibility. This area was first settled by Long Hunters, the Sword brothers, specifically because of the sulfur water. The water created "salt licks", which drew game in, and the Swords took advantage of that concentration of game, and eventually filed land claims to settle here.
But if there is sulfur in the water, how to you get it out and separate it from the salts? Does the sulfur content of the coal still in the ground here have something to do with it? Can one extract the sulfur from the coal?
I know how to mold the bullets, but not how to get the lead locally. Some old timers found relatively pure lead outcrops, but I've never seen one. There was an entire lead mine near Fort Chiswell in Virginia, but I've not found any around here.
I know how to make the caps and the primer compound, and there ought to be enough cans around here to supply a couple of generations already with caps.
I know how to get the iron out of the dirt, where it's found locally to get out of the dirt (there was an iron bloomery about 3 miles from where I was raised), and how to turn it into steel... I know how to work it down, but probably do not have the artistry to make it into a gun. That would fall to someone else, maybe someone I could trade iron and powder to...
The point is, it's not me. I merely stand on the shoulders of giants just to see the way ahead, and I have no idea who those giants were, or how they discovered what I can use now, and I wonder about them frequently.
.
Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king.
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’