streaks and marks, 2
*
Rail No. 60.
Old English steel rail. Cammel toughened Sheffield steel, 1873. Longitudinal streaks in base.
Polished and etched specimen.
E. O. Cockayne — Boston.
(cropped from page)
ex Report of the tests of metals and other materials for industrial purposes made with the United States testing machine at Watertown Arsenal, during the Fiscal Year ended June 30, 1908. 1909
Harvard University copy (Eng 318.81.3), digitized October 1, 2007
This from section "Steel Rails. Views of streaks and marks on longitudinal and cross sections of steel rails, and photomicrographs of thermal cracks and fissures." commences here.
Am conscious of this image's origin in a machine made for testing munitions, although in this instance turned to tests for private parties.
Why here, now? Perhaps because they're mute, indexicality diminished. What was once evidence has outlived its forensic function, is reduced now to just streaks and marks. Etched steel engravings, impervious to the language that wraps them.
10 March 2014
tags: marks; steel; streaks; tests; Watertown Arsenal