Abstract
IN reference to the discussion on the rusting of iron in recent numbers of NATURE, I happen to have a curious specimen illustrating the accumulating of rust which may possibly be of some little scientific value. It is a horseshoe which was dug up some years ago by a child out of the sand on the site of the battle of Prestonpans, near Edinburgh. It was given me by the child's father, who was with him at the time. The shoe is now very irregular and lumpy. The thickness of the naked iron can be made out at one spot, where it is partially denuded. It is just three-eighths of an inch. But with the mass of what I can only describe as rust, and, I presume, sand—some small pebbles are, too, imbedded in it—it is in one spot as thick as 2 inches, and in girth it there measures 6 inches. No part of it is wholly clear of rust; the smallest girth is 4 inches.
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MEEHAN, J. The Rusting of Iron. Nature 75, 31 (1906). https://doi.org/10.1038/075031a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/075031a0
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