One repair option that the city experimented with was
oakum packing and cement patches.
According to a work Liber ignium ad comburendos hostes (On the Use of Fire to Conflagrate the Enemy) which was allegedly written by some Marcus Graecus from the 9th century this fire was made from sulphur, resin,
oakum, oil and some other components.
They douse
oakum with kerosene from cans, toss it around in different places, set it on fire, and quickly join the hooting and hollering crowd that crosses over from this shop to others, following the drum signal.
Without a supply of hemp for sails and rope and
oakum, Britain's navy would collapse in less than 18 months.
In the period leading up to 1899, women's prison labor had included, variously, stone breaking, pumping water from a well, picking
oakum (41) (assigned to the Lock Hospital prison inmates), beating and preparing coconut fiber for mattress making, cooking prison food, washing prison clothing and bedding, and cleaning.
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oakum cogent quizzical fulsome turgid Edited by DAVID L.
Wadding between the shot and powder was generally
oakum or old rope teased apart over thin cork or paper.
- WHITE MOUNTAINS TO TAKE MINORITY STAKE IN
OAKUM BAY CAPITAL
We found out about the "money for old rope" that Victorian prisoners could earn from
oakum picking - pulling apart pieces of old rope to be re-used.
Another is burning small balls made of
oakum above a cloth covering the patient's head or another body part, or pouring, also above the patient's head, liquid wax into a container filled with cold water [33].
Work done by the male inmates included breaking granite, grinding wheat, picking
oakum and scrubbing floors.
Team archaeologists believe that the lack of water circulation in that tight space, plus the presence of an oily substance, perhaps caulking
oakum, may have inhibited bacteria that normally consume organic material.
