Dear Wayne and Roger,
You're treading on my ground (pun), so here goes with some
observations. (It's related to CS but if to OT, Mike'll give this the
heave ho.) The gray clay and the black clay are much the same,
primarily differing in content of what colors: carbon. But these are
both common varieties of earthenware clay. Were you to fire these upto
about 800 to 1000oC you'd get a reddish, terra cotta earthenware. The
reddish color cmes from iron, which is only very apparent in non-white
firing clays. White clay is porcelain, geologically peculiar to a clay
that was never transported by the weather from its site of origin. In
moving the iron is picked up, bringing about earthenware in the most
simplistic terms.
As for the water proofing I think that any fine grained clay will help
achieve this. What happened with the scooped out sand/ bentonite mix
was that the water probably penetrated a bit, at some point bringing
about a mix that had a certain water content, in which water will not
pass. If water content of a clay is either too high or too low then a
lot of additional water can pass. But a certain water content (perhaps
15 to 20%) brings about a barrier that is impenetrable to additional
water. If this were not the case then ponds and lakes could not form,
but then such speculation appears to be farfetched; not germane.
Evening Roger,
>>John, would this be the black 'mud' seen in volcanic bubbling mud
pools?
I do know it's >>used by the ladies as a skin conditioner and even
as a
face pack with great results.
All that I have seen is a light gray in color. There were mines in
the
area where I grew up.
In later years, I purchased a few hundred pounds to waterproof a
pond dam.
This is some amazing material.
As a test, I made a small dished hole in sand with bentonite
mixed, poured
in a glass of water and it was still there at the end of the day.
It will
waterproof pure sand.
After fixing the pond dam, the grapevines behind the dam died for
lack of
water.
So.... I guess it works for that purpose.
There exist a number of grades and qualities of this stuff, as is
evident
by the prince range.
Wayne
Hi Wayne,
Pity it's not the black stuff as there's pools of it around
here and
nothing to do with it. I'll cancel my idea of a pond :-)
Roger B
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