Audrey Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Tsurugi Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Even with metal-rimmed wheels, there is still
> the
> > problem of ox-drawn carts following the same
> path
> > so precisely, and repeating it enough times as
> to
> > make deep ruts which their wheels could not
> > escape. This is the process which I feel needs
> to
> > be demonstrated. IMO, it won't be, because it
> is
> > ludicrous. This is ignored only because
> > alternatives are altogether unpalatable to
> > mainstream thinking.
> > contemporary?
>
> For comparison, there are the Oregon Trail ruts.
> One covered wagon following another. The wagons
> were pulled by horse or ox.


> The wagons didn't leave deep ruts
> in soil, but did in sandstone? What kind of wagon
> has a 5' high axle?

Great images and questions. All of my knowledge of the Oregon Trail comes from an ancient videogame of the same name, which I never was able to complete. I always died from dysentery or something in the mountains.

I do know that 'slickrock' was a huge concern for wagoners at the time. I went to Moab with friends to do some off-roading in the desert, where many of the trails follow the old wagon tracks, and you could tell how paranoid they were about traveling across expanses of smooth, hardened stone by the way they chopped at the surface, often digging a sunken roadway into it or cutting wheel tracks. The wagon wheels, being banded in iron, would easily slide sideways on smooth stone surfaces, resulting in a broken axle at best when a wheel fetched up against something that made it stop sliding. At worst the whole wagon could roll, breaking or killing everyone in it and ruinimg most of the supplies. So the paranoia was justified.

That's why I think you see packed soil surfaces with only defoliated tracks, but on expanses of stone there are cuts through it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 28-Nov-17 18:32 by Tsurugi.