A Few More Finds From The Alleghyney Forest

[zoup]

Hi. Here are a few more finds from the Alleghney forest

[Auspex]

The third piece (with the twigs) is different from anything I've found at my sites near Smethport; other than that, the matrix looks similar.

How do you like all the gas wells that have been drilled in the Nat. Forest?

[zoup]

Hey Auspex.

I have been going up to the same part of the national forest for 42 years now. Yes there are new well sites and roads down in the forest but for the most part the old wells have just been changed over to new rigs but there are alot of new pump houses. There is an old late 19th century early 20th century wheel hub house down in the forest where we camp, it is cool to see the way it used to be back in the day nothing like it is now.

Next time laurel and I are down in the forest camping I will go down in and grab some photos from the days of old. There are still alot of old wooden water and oil seperation tanks over 130 years or more down in the woods plus the old metal tripod and conecting rod system that go to the hub houses still standing, some of them go for a mile or more. Its sad what they are doing to the forest, infact the deer population is almost gone. I remember when I was a kid it was nothing to see 100 to 200 deer in any given day of camping, now if you see 5 deer in a day you did good. The same thing that is happening now in the forest happend when Teddy Roosevelt became president, wheres teddy when you need him. Thanks for looking Paul

[Auspex]

We're just off the eastern edge of the plateau, and gas is hard to come by; an hour east or west and the wells produce profitably. Didn't keep them from drilling 85 new deep-wells all around us though.

All the artifacts in our woods are from 1895-1910, when the last of the Black Forest was cut; logging tram roads, strip mines for coal to run the locomotives, the barest traces of logging camps (look for the apple trees). The second-growth cuts in the 50's and 60's made some great deer habitat, and the populations exploded; by the late 60's, the regeneration of the cherry trees was profoundly impacted by over browsing. It was the late 80's before the woods had grown up enough that the deer herds crashed. What you see now is a return to the historic population densities (only took 120 years to recover...).

I would really like to see pictures of your wood's historic assets; it's a time and place in history in which I am very interested. My Great Grandfather was a pioneer on the Big Level.

[zoup]

Hey Auspex

Have you ever been up the drake well museum its mostly a photo museum but a good one. Its outside of oil city a few miles.