Allum

D

Dextraneous

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Just been ploughing my way through What the Tudors and Stewarts did for us. Plenty it would seem, but the strangest one (in episode 5 on youtube) is the way they get alum from a particular shale rock. Allum was used to fix dyes into wool. They got it by burning piles of quarried shale for 9 months before adding stale peasant urine etc, thus producing alluminium something or other which could be concentrated before it turned into alum.

How the heck did someone work that out :? :? C'mon Eddie - explain.
 
Was that the Ravenscar area? I wondered the same when I first saw that.
 
Dextraneous said:
Just been ploughing my way through What the Tudors and Stewarts did for us. Plenty it would seem, but the strangest one (in episode 5 on youtube) is the way they get allum from a particular shale rock. Allum was used to fix dyes into wool. They got it by burning piles of quarried shale for 9 months before adding stale peasant urine etc, thus producing alluminium something or other which could be concentrated before it turned into allum.

How the heck did someone work that out :? :? C'mon Eddie - explain.
Click to expand...

Dunno, but I think Alum is spelt with 1 L !
 
EddieM said:
Dextraneous said:
Just been ploughing my way through What the Tudors and Stewarts did for us. Plenty it would seem, but the strangest one (in episode 5 on youtube) is the way they get allum from a particular shale rock. Allum was used to fix dyes into wool. They got it by burning piles of quarried shale for 9 months before adding stale peasant urine etc, thus producing alluminium something or other which could be concentrated before it turned into allum.

How the heck did someone work that out :? :? C'mon Eddie - explain.
Click to expand...

Dunno, but I think Alum is spelt with 1 L !
Click to expand...
Only in Church Latin :mrgreen: :wink:
 
This will be one of those accidental discoveries like cement.

One scenario is that the shale (which is low grade coal) was burned for heat. The stuff didn't burn very well so once buring they kept it burning all year long. One day some fool took a waz on the embers and it splashed his clothing - and when he washed it he saw that it had stained and couldn't be washed out.

Or another might be like when I was a kid, a local shale tip from mining was alight for decades (probably a lightening strike). It burned below the surface. Maybe a wet sheep got its wool stained and didn't wash out.

No-one will ever really know.
 
That's where the saying "aint got a pot to **** in" originates

Seriously poor people would sell their urine but the utterly destitute didn't even have a "pot to **** in" !!
 
CylonRaider said:
That's where the saying "aint got a pot to p**s in" originates

Seriously poor people would sell their urine but the utterly destitute didn't even have a "pot to p**s in" !!
Click to expand...
Aye - they used to use urine in the leather tanning industry.
 
At one time they used to use urea to disperse ice on RAF runways. I suppose it's just a large scale version of writing your name in the snow.

Don't eat the yellow snow.
 
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