Beads
In 1994, Rob Irving and John Lundberg
collaborated during the 'Fe3
Project' to mount a group exhibition in the Agency Gallery, London. One
exhibit was a plastic bottle containing what was claimed to be material used
to create the H-Glaze. Recently, I managed to obtained a sample of this
material for investigation.
First, an examination of the label on the bottle (right) revealed the supplier's name and part of the address. The typed lettering indicating the contents (see arrow) was partly removed by adhesive tape used to affix Irving's address. The picture above is a reconstruction of this lettering from the back of this adhesive tape and the label.
The material had a very fine texture. In general appearance, it was similar to LaserJet toner, though paler in colour. I first examined it microscopically. Most of it consisted of clusters of very small smooth round beads. The beads varied in size up to a maximum of about 80 microns (0.08mm). Four of these larger particles are shown on the left. Clusters of smaller beads, constituting about 90% of the whole, appeared to have been be fused together and could only the separated with difficulty. These beads appeared to be identical to those observed in the H-Glaze by both myself and Levengood. The similarity between this powder and the H-Glaze was striking and, from this initial and purely visual assessment, this material appears to be identical to that found in the 1993 deposit.
The most convincing evidence for heat being involved in the creation of the H-Glaze was the presence of rounded beads of iron. I stated in the initial report that they must have formed into rounded shapes by surface tension when in the liquid phase and this is still true. It was this unusual characteristic of the powder that had added significantly to the credibility of the H-Glaze. If the powder had been produced by, say, grinding or filing, as had been suggested, then the mundane origins of the H-Glaze would have been obvious from the start.
The powder in Rob Irving's possession is a very specialised product. It is not readily obtainable. Where could such material have come from and how did it find its way into the field at Yatesbury?
There are several processes whereby iron can be reduced in this way. However, there are only a few that can produce iron with the requisite purity.
One possibility is gas atomization which
is used commercially to produce the largest tonnage of metal
powders. This process involves melting stock metal by induction
heating and then allowing it to flow at a controlled rate through an
atomizing nozzle. At this point, the melt is
struck by high speed preheated inert gas which disintegrates the
stream of metal into fine droplets which solidify into spherical
form during their descent through the chamber. Most of the heavier
droplets will be collected in this way but many smaller particles
will be carried over in the gas flow and deposited in a second
filtration chamber. From the distribution of particle
sizes, I suspect that Rob Irving's iron powder was refined in this
way. For further information, see "Powder Metallurgy
Science" by R.M. German.
From the label, we can see that Berk Limited was part of the Steetley Organization. This company was formed about 100 years ago to work dolomite deposits at Steetley in Nottinghamshire for the manufacture of furnace linings used in steel production. They are now a large international holding company. They acquired Berk Limited in 1970 but rationalised their manufacturing capability in 1982 and sold off their Stratford operations (Stratford is discernable as part of the address) in 1983. Chemical production still represents about 20% of their output but, as far as I have been able to ascertain, no longer includes reduced iron.
On Berk's original label was typed the name and address of the original purchaser of this powder: Clarendon Laboratory, Parks Road, Oxford. This is part of Oxford University.
In the early 90's, crop circle researchers were claiming that they could use magnetic anomalies to verify the authenticity of formations. Rob Irving stated that his motive for laying this deposit was to test these claims and Jim Schnabel, who was then at Oxford University, had sent him this iron dust in the belief that it would be suitable for this purpose. Paradoxically, it was not the magnetic properties of the deposit that first attracted investigators but its appearance and the most inexplicable aspect, at least for me, was not the presence of the iron but rather its source.
I now turn to the analysis results in my first report. These seemed to confirm the case that heat was involved in the creation of the H-glaze. These results were wrong. A full report on the next page.