Circa 1800s grain transportation question

Check out the topography of Turkey. 1100 years ago caravans traversed the area and the nomadic Turkman tribes roamed the valleys. Caravanasaries had been set up by the ruling states to help support travel and trade. You were welcome to eat and sleep there for free for up to 3 days, then you got the boot.

You've probably already seen it, but here's a source on Google Books about wagon trains that looks to have relevant information about e.g. spooked oxen.

Classic way to stampede an animal or human is yellow jackets or wasps. In the American West, mountain lions were much more likely to cause a stampede than wolves.

Jim Clark-Dawe

Patty said:

Thank you Jim. One of the characters wouldn't know how to spot a bee tree to save his life. So this can work. (I'm also considering a brush fire from the fire ring. I think this can work to spook everyone! But, they aren't really equipped to put it out or outrun it; and I'm not partial to the idea of a brush fire. The bee/wasp idea is good.)

A few Qs, if you have time, if not, no worries. I've looked online and found some info, for some Qs not posted here. The below Qs ... I cannot find good info; perhaps my failing.

1. Would slapping the reins (hard) bring a team of oxen to a trot?

I've been using slapping the reins as a way to 'show not tell' anger in the wagon driver. I assume as he gets more angry, and slaps harder, the oxen will eventually trot but I have zero experience with this, some experience with horses. Is the behavior similar? (Also, is 'Hi-yah' something the driver would say to bring them up?)

Oxen can be driven from the side or from behind. Advantage of from the side is your weight isn't being pulled by the oxen. Here's a video of doing it with lines https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4LGVTuR9HQd and here's from the side https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3lxxNCt5Zo. I've never seen it done by lines and am used to from the side with a short whip. However, I think this is a cultural thing and local mileage varies. Gee and Haw are universal as far as I know in the English speaking world. Short article on the training and commands at http://www.mvmagazine.com/news/2011/08/01/how-it-works-driving-oxen

Oxen tend to have two paces. Plodding walking and full on gallop. They can trot, and will do it sometimes naturally, but not usually. It's just not a pace that they're comfortable with, unlike horses which will trot naturally for extensive distances. Definitely whipping them with either lines or a whip on the rump will cause them to move faster, but unless trained, there's no telling for sure what you're going to get for a pace. Could be a faster walk, could be a trot, or it could be a gallop.

2. Do they smell like cow (manure)?

I assume. Does the scent get on you from handling them? (I assume.) (Tangentially, I read online that when oxen scent bison, they go nuts. This intrigues me, as a side thought.)

Cattle usually don't like bison. There are reports of wagon trains having major runaways because of bison.

They smell of cow. Cow manure tends to be wetter and stickier than horse manure. It will get on your clothes. Definitely a bull whacker would end up smelling of cow after a couple of days on the trail.

3. I read online that they can scent water from miles away. Any idea about this?

The wagon train loses a steer a few miles out from the river. I'm trying to get a handle on overall animal behavior at this point.

Cattle can smell water from several miles, depending upon wind direction. If thirsty enough, there's no stopping the stampede. They'll go off a cliff when they get to the water. This is part of planning ahead. One thing cattle drives would emphasize was easy in on the water, as several parts of the trail, depending upon weather, could be dry for extended periods. Good distance between water holes would be about ten miles, with twenty being doable. Forty to fifty seems to be about the longest you could go without water, and you'd probably be driving them at a faster pace than normal.

Trails in arid and semi-arid areas are based upon water holes. If there's plenty of water, than trails are based upon terrain.

No need to reply, but if it's an easy call, for you or others, I'd sure appreciate it.

Click to expand...

Jim Clark-Dawe

You might read this thread on wine barrels. It has some interesting points made about what happens to barrels in fire conditions.

re: whiskey, isn't it the vapor that ignites, rather than the alcohol itself?

You also might check into some of the historical whiskey warehouse fires to see what the conditions were that caused the fires to be so spectacular. A warehouse situation, for example, is more likely to have other things-- greasy things, maybe piles of unused materials, whatever-- that would encourage a fire to spread, moreso than a wagon transport.

You also might want to explain why no one noticed the smell, which I think would be the first clue that there was a problem.

It is the vapour that catches alight and if the barrels are closed and vapours inside the barrel are set alight, the barrel will explode. Bear in mind that powdered grain (e.g. flour) can become explosive, as can icing sugar, or any combustible powder. If a lot of powder is in the air, it can explode. A 50/50 mix of air and a flammable gas or powder will explode when ignited. So if they're transporting whiskey and flour, there's a big risk of explosion.

From a story point of view, if you want a big explosion, then flour could be the cause rather than whiskey. Maybe a bag bursts and fills the wagon with flour and they don't realise there's a danger and someone lights a candle or fire too close or something. Or you could combine flour with leaking alcohol. But if the thing of having people not notice the smell of the spilled whiskey is an issue, maybe they did notice the flour bag burst and the air was full of flour but they didn't realise there was a fire/explosion risk.

My experience of alcohol burning comes from my dad setting rum soaked Christmas pudding alight at Christmas. It can be a bit tricky to set alight, but once you get it alight it all catches and burns very quickly. In theory, it burns quickly then goes out when the alcohol's all gone. In practice, there's still enough rum left in the Christmas pudding to put you over the legal drink-drive limit. In regards to your question about the strength of the whiskey - my dad uses ordinary rum (well, sometimes quite posh rum) for the xmas pudding. I don't know what % proof but probably 70% or less. Most spirits over here are 40% by volume, which AFAIK is 70% proof (the bottle has to say the % by volume, not the % proof and I don't drink spirits much these days so I don't know for sure).

My suggestion would be to check out the health and safety documents and advice for breweries, bakeries and anywhere that stores grain (especially flour) and strong alcohol. This should give you info about what is and is not safe in terms of storage and transportation, and when and why something becomes not safe. They may also have links to past incidents to give an idea of what the dangers are and the potential extent of the damage.

Regarding flour, yeah, if you sprinkle it over a lit candle it will fwoof, but I really, really doubt that airborne flour dust out in the open will catch fire, let alone explode. The bin explosions I know about happen during auguring into an enclosed bin or silo, with lots of raised dust inside and a spark from metal-on-metal contact of the machinery. The dust settles quickly and the danger of explosion is really only a thing during loading. I would find a drafty old covered wagon exploding from flour dust laughably unbelievable to the point I might put down the book. I would believe burning whiskey, and it doesn't need to explode as much as burn and burn and burn. A firefighter I know told me that gasoline in car fires doesn't explode, it just spreads crazy fast and keeps going for a long time. Don't forget any gunpowder your group would have with them, too.

I've looked in on this thread since it started, and the whole "whiskey was a source of carbs" for pioneers has not passed the sniff test for me. 100 g of whiskey contains approximately 250 kcal, while 100 g of wheat flour contains about 364 kcal. Therefore, the same weight of whiskey would only have provided only 2/3 the calories versus wheat flour on a per-weight basis. Water, even in whiskey, is stupid expensive to transport because it is so heavy, be it cost of transport on a boat or the caloric cost to the animals pulling a wagon, and water can be found in most places so it doesn't pay to transport it. You're better off transporting more caloricly concentrated dry goods and mixing with water you find on the way.

So many different issues.

Water is heavy and cheap. Water weighs 8 pounds per gallon and a hundred gallons of water weighs 800 pounds, more or less. Get rid of 800 pounds of water and substitute alcohol for it and increase your profits. This isn't discussed (and I can understand why), but my guess is whiskey used to be transported at a significantly higher alcohol content and then watered down when it arrived at its destination. Definitely when fluids are transported in bulk, you get rid of as much water as possible. This is why you have "bottling" plants.

Much of the whiskey served back in the day in working class bars probably wasn't too good compared to modern whiskeys. It would be watered down to increase the volume that could be sold. The good stuff went to the rich and transportation costs were one of the reasons.

Wood barrels are built under compression. The hoops squeeze the barrels closed and the result if a very effective means of transport. Leaks happened, but not very frequently. Usually it would be the bung that comes loose. Simple fix is to take a hammer to the bung and whack it.

Assuming you have a leak, it depends upon how much fluid per minute leaks as to how noticeable it is. It also depends upon where the wagon is within the wagon train. The last wagon might not have anyone walking behind it to notice a leak. I'm not sure you'd notice it be odor.

Depending upon the era, there may or may not be any iron in the hub. Many wagons used wood in their hubs. Wagons don't travel very fast and even if the hub runs dry of grease it doesn't get hot enough to burn. A long downhill with a dry hub might cause a fire, although it would probably be a fire that could be easily put out with water and/or dirt.

I'd find it more credible for someone to drop a match while lighting their cigarette as opposed to a fire escaping the fire ring. Smokers, even now, can do high risk activities.

Here's a couple of links to a whiskey fire -- https://comeheretome.com/2014/04/09/the-1875-liberties-whiskey-fire/ https://www.irishtimes.com/news/off...y-ran-through-the-streets-of-dublin-1.2743517

This seems a very plausible description of a whiskey fire. I think you'd probably get a flare initially and then a steady burn in your scenario. I would not see any barrels surviving. The bungs would pop and getting the fire put out would be extremely unlikely until it burns itself out.

Jim Clark-Dawe

Chris P said:

Regarding flour, yeah, if you sprinkle it over a lit candle it will fwoof, but I really, really doubt that airborne flour dust out in the open will catch fire, let alone explode.

Click to expand...

The scenario I'd had in mind was of someone going in there with a flame while it was still in the air, like after something had happened, e.g. bag burst while loading/unloading. Yeah if it has time to settle then it won't explode. You need about a 50/50 mix of air and fuel for it to explode. The kinds of lamps people had back then could set the whole thing alight, or if anyone smokes (I don't know enough about USA history to know if these people would likely smoke or not - or what kind of lamps for that matter, but they wouldn't be battery powered torches). Also, even if it's settled it can still burn, especially if it's stored in sacks made of flammable material like hessian or whatever. The wagons can burn too.

Regarding possible reasons for carrying whiskey, I don't know about the USA, but in the UK at various times in the past, people drank alcoholic drinks instead of water when the water wasn't safe to drink. More likely beer than whiskey for that though, due to whiskey being a lot more expensive.

Whiskey would have been transported in 50 gallon barrels, which weigh about 400+ pounds. Not so easy to tip over and up again. More likely the guy with the whiskey would have a tap that would replace the bung when being used. He'd carry a tap in case he got thirsty. Guy leaves the tap open and whiskey starts spilling on the ground.

Brush fires are unpredictable, but they do move fast. I'd have them abandon the wagons and just get the livestock across the river, along with their hides. Smoke would hide the effects of the fire and they can assume their wagons are burned up.

Jim Clark-Dawe