why are so many log buildings hewed on two sides?

[bm.stanford]

Neat picture of the old furnace.  I've seen another very similar to this in Floyd VA.  Same scenario, built beside a steep hill to access the top but taller.  I was told it was used to smelt copper although could have been used for limestone as well.  

[Don P]

Hmm, you do have Copper Hill, could be and it sounds more like a furnace than a lime kiln.

This is a pic of one of our iron furnaces, they are considerably larger and taller and have a brick lined cone on cone shaped interior. They also have  3 arches on the sides at the bottom. On the front is the tapping arch with slag arches and provision for the wind belt (air blast) on the sides.

The shed here is over the tapping arch and casting floor. Back in the day there was a brick top a bit higher and the narrow guage ran on the hill behind it. there was a wooden bridge from the hill to charge it with ore, charcoal and limestone to flux the slag. I've seen old pics of this one with railroad and locomotive castings around.




This is standing inside another one a few miles from that furnace. I'm standing at about the level of the bosh, the widest part of the cone on cone shaped interior. The hottest part. You can see the lining collapsed which was probably the death of this furnace. Some of the salt pots for Saltville came from this furnace.



 

With the advent of hot blast, coke and the Bessemer converter these old charcoal furnaces were idled. More than a few continued for awhile burning lime.

I've heard stories of colliers, charcoal makers, climbing onto the earth covered pile to patch a smoke leak and falling into the hot charcoal.